b. a > b.'s Quotes

“I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.”
― Yohji Yamamoto

“People label themselves with all sorts of adjectives. I can only pronounce myself as 'nauseatingly miserable beyond repair'.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find yourself.”
― Yohji Yamamoto

“I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
― Nick Cave

“I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric. I thought, "As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn’t matter how, I’ll be alright. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won’t mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.”
― Osamu Dazai

“Seems," madam? Nay, it is; I know not "seems."
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed . . . equally well.”
― J. S. Bach

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
― William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads

“I feel death pinching me by the throat, or pulling me by the back.”
― Michel de Montaigne

“There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love.”
― W.H. Auden

“Innocence is no earthly weapon.”
― Geoffrey Hill, New and Collected Poems, 1952-1992

“We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”
― Henry James, The Middle Years

“It's time to start living the life you've imagined.”
― Henry James