Brandon

“Return along old walks where thrusts of grass by force of love have split the measure stone.”
― Nelson Algren, Chicago: City on the Make

“That’s the whole game: Becoming convinced that there is a voice inside you that really, really knows what it likes, and getting better at hearing that voice and acting on its behalf. [...] How emphatically can you like what you like? How long are you willing to work on something, to ensure that every bit of it gets infused with some trace of your radical preference?" -George Saunders”
― George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

“and what the picture is in reality is this spirit, that’s what a picture really is, neither matter nor soul but both parts at the same time and together they make up what I think of as spirit, and maybe that’s why my good paintings, yes, all good paintings, have something to do with what I, what Christians, call The Holy Spirit, because all good art has this spirit, good pictures, good poems, good music, and what makes it good is not the material, not matter, and it’s not the content, the idea, the thought, no, what makes it good is just this unity of matter and form and soul that becomes spirit, that’s what culture is, probably, he says, it’s probably just one person being like another person that creates a culture, for example wearing a suit and tie, while what art is, yes, art is everyone just being like themselves, and totally themselves”
― Jon Fosse, Septology

“In fact, prayer and certainty are the same thing; both mean the power to truly see into the future, the true future, not the image of the eternal return of the past: no one prays for the sun to come up tomorrow. Through belief, we see the future and already inhabit it.”
― Mircea Cărtărescu, Solenoid