A.

“..."offensive" is frequently but a synonym for "unusual"...”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

“Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.”
― Edgar Degas

“I vow to ingest only items that preserve well-being, peace, and joy in my body and my consciousness... Practicing a diet is the essence of this precept. Wars and bombs are the products of our consciousness individually and collectively. Our collective consciousness has so much violence, fear, craving, and hatred in it, it can manifest in wars and bombs. The bombs are the product of our fear... Removing the bombs is not enough. Even if we could transport all the bombs to a distant planet, we would still not be safe, because the roots of the wars and the bombs are still intact in our collective consciousness. Transforming the toxins in our collective consciousness is the true way to uproot war (72-73).”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, For a Future to Be Possible