Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.
“If You Fail, Never Give Up Because F.A.I.L. Means “First Attempt In Learning”. End Is Not The End, If Fact E.N.D. Means “Effort Never Dies.” If You Get No As An Answer, Remember N.O. Means “Next Opportunity”, So Let’s Be Positive.”
There are three things, after all, that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind. It is the most important of all to reach the heart of the reader.
Religion is not something separate and apart from ordinary life. It is life - life of every kind viewed from the standpoint of meaning and purpose: life lived in the fuller awareness of its human quality and spiritual significance.
Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive . and it has a soul. We are part of that soul, so we rarely recognize that it is working for us.
People don't live their lives in a series of scenes that form a dramatic narrative, they don't speak in dialogue, they're not lit by a cinematographer or scored by a composer. The properties of real life and the properties of drama have almost nothing to do with each other. The difference between writing about reporters and being a reporter is the same as the difference between drawing a building and building a building.
. . . More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheeps or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Not only for themselves but for those who call them friend? For so this whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective.
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
Had she never been hungry enough to eat a flower? Did she not know that you could eat daisies, daylilies, pansies, and marigolds? That hungry enough, a person could consume the bright faces of violas, even the stems of dandelions and the bitter hips of roses?