Jason Oliver

“There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either. And there is the beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended. Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Scars bear testimony to occupation, to event, but not to circumstances; to phenomena but not conditions. They are evidence only, not details. In which direction was he walking? Were the soles of his boots intact? Was the knife fresh-sharpened? What did he witness? I want to know more than the fact that my grandfather was in the Altamaha floodplain in 1928... Scars turn into trinkets you keep.”
― Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

“Maybe not. But maybe yes. Ellen, the older I get, the more convinced I am that every hurt the world has ever known is somehow the fault of every person who ever lived. Maybe not directly and never entirely, but somehow, I fear, we own all of the world’s hurts together.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“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