Sheyd

“Don't let yourself be victimized by the age you live in. It's not the
times that will bring us down, any more than it's society. When you
put the blame on society, then you end up turning to society for the
solution. Just like those poor neurotics at the Care Fest. There's a
tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsiblity and treat
them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with
your soul. It's not men who limit women, it's not straights who limit
gays, it's not whites who limit black. what limits people is lack of
character. What limites people is that they don't have the fucking
nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.
Yuck....It's a wonderful time to be alive. As long as one has enough
dynamite. --pg. 116-117”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“There are many artists who’ve not yet gotten a good foothold or who are old war-horses at developing their creative lives, and yet and still, every time they reach for the pen, the brush, the ribbons, the script, they hear, “You’re nothing but trouble, your work is marginal or completely unacceptable—because you yourself are marginal and unacceptable.” So what is the solution? Do as the duckling does. Go ahead, struggle through it. Pick up the pen already and put it to the page and stop whining. Write. Pick up the brush and be mean to yourself for a change, paint. Dancers, put on the loose chemise, tie the ribbons in your hair, at your waist, or on your ankles and tell the body to take it from there. Dance. Actress, playwright, poet, musician, or any other. Generally, just stop talking. Don’t say one more word unless you’re a singer. Shut yourself in a room with a ceiling or in a clearing under the sky. Do your art. Generally, a thing cannot freeze if it is moving. So move. Keep moving.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

“The camel has a big dumb ugly hump. But in the desert, where prettier, more streamlined beasts die quickly of thirst, the camel survives quite nicely. As legend has it, the camel carries its own water, stores it in its stupid hump. If individuals, like camels, perfect their inner resources, if we have the power within us, then we can cross any wasteland in relative comfort and survive in arid surroundings without relying on the external. Often, moreover, it is our "hump" - that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable - that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
― haruki murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running