JJ ONeal

“Instead of constantly asking ourselves the question of why we're here, maybe we should be savoring the simpler truth: We are here.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“How is it, Theo wondered, that a piece of paper - a letter, a photo, a ticket stub, a sketch, a painting - is suddenly transformed by placing it in four bits of wood beneath a pane of glass? What does it mean that we place permanent boundaries around transient moments? What does it say of humankind that we take such trouble to freeze specific memories, that we devote such energy to capturing and preserving the "minute particulars" of our lives?”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“The grief that must fill the world is incomprehensible. Our small dose felt as large as the sun, didn’t it?”
― Virginia Evans, The Correspondent

“for anything to be good, truly good, there must be love in it. I’m not even sure I know fully what that means, but the older I get, the more I believe it. There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told, and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child, if love is not in it — at the very heart of it — it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it’s supposed to be if love is not at the core.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden