Ma

“Trying to express the leaf, the carvers inadvertently had expressed themselves. But it was a superior kind of self-expression, coming not from narcissism or exhibitionism, but from a union with their subject. It was unconscious, unintended: an unimportant side effect....If you want to express yourself, stop expressing yourself. Better yet, stop wanting to express yourself....Forget yourself. It will improve your work. Let the things you make proceed by their own design.”
― David Esterly, The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making

“The unique book, which contains the whole, could only be the sacred text, the total word revealed. But I do not believe totality can be contained in language; my problem is what remains outside, the unwritten, the unwritable. The only way left me is that of writing all books, writing the books of all possible authors.”
― Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

“Secrets, she agreed. The definition of personality, I went on, reminding her that Odysseus wept when he heard the poet sing of his great deeds abroad because, once sung, they were no longer his alone. They belonged to anyone who heard the song.”
― Just Ward, An Unfinished Season

“...to admit to oneself the presence within oneself of angry, aggressive feelings is essential to one's wholeness.”
― Jesse M. Trotter, Christian Wholeness: Spiritual Direction for Today