Clarissa

“There is a great divide between good playing and great playing. The worst musicians are unaware that this distance exists, and they fumble their way through magnificent literature, oblivious. Most players sense this divide, however, and they know which side of it they are on. A few of these determine to struggle their whole musical lives to reach the side of greatness by practicing and working harder and harder. They end up impressing their friends and colleagues with their machine-like mastery of difficult pieces. But they know that they are not great. They know it because for a few moments, moments that they will remember and cling to for the rest of their lives, they have actually crossed that divide. For a shining moment they understood, and they wept and played and believed in their greatness. But they were cast out again, and no amount of struggling would bring them back across.

No one crosses the divide by struggling, and no one passes through it by practice. There is only one bridge across. It is the bridge of abandonment, and it is built of helplessness, and of courage. Great playing is given over to the music utterly and completely. It is abandoned and willing. It is calm and it is shrieking. It is weeping and laughter, and more than anything else, it is love.”
― Reed Arvin, The Wind in the Wheat

“If I catch you on my back trail, no matter what you're hunting, I'll stake each of you to six feet of northern Arizona that nobody will ever take away from you.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Key-Lock Man

“What man would not want such a woman? Not one to follow only, but to stand beside him during the dark days, to work with him, plan with him, share with him, making their life a whole thing together.”
― Louis L'Amour, High Lonesome

“There are tides in the affairs of men, tides of restlessness and awareness; there are thin threads of thought that reach out across the distance and, like the threads of a weaver, are drawn together tight.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Key-Lock Man