mimosa

“Now before going to a party, I just tell myself to listen with affection to anyone who talks to me, to be in their shoes when they talk, to try to know them without my mind pressing against theirs, or arguing, or changing the subject. No. My attitude is: 'Tell me more.' This person is showing me his soul. It is a little dry and meager and full of grinding talk just now, but presently he will begin to think, not just automatically to talk. He will show his true self. Then he will be wonderfully alive.' ...Creative listeners are those who want you to be recklessly yourself, even at your very worst, even vituperative, bad-tempered. They are laughing and just delighted with any manifestation of yourself, bad or good. For true listeners know that if you are bad-tempered it does not mean that you are always so. They don't love you just when you are nice; they love all of you.”
― Brenda Ueland, Strength to Your Sword Arm: Selected Writings

“When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.”
― Brenda Ueland

“أن تؤمن وأن تعمل فهذا هو المثل الأعلى،
ألا تؤمن فذاك طريق آخر اسمه الضياع،
أن تؤمن وتعجز عن العمل فهذا هو الجحيم.”
― نجيب محفوظ, Miramar

“I am a restrained person.
Otherwise my heart would race past my
tongue to pour out everything.
Instead I mumble,
I gnaw myself.
I lose hope.
And my mind is burning.”
― Anne Carson, An Oresteia