Blaise Pascal

The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this it the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves, and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. 

Grayson Morris email to Matt Ruby, August 8, 2022

…Yes, I think like any art form, to understand it, you must go to school for it & no list of principles will suffice. But since I sometimes teach clown, & I'm developing my own pedagogy, here's my list, just for fun:

1 The clown lives to have fun and the clown lives to please the audience. If the clown's fun displeases the audience, the clown is sorry. 

2 The clown relishes in their body and what it can do, especially what it can do that pleases the audience. 

3 The clown is always real, open, present with, and vulnerable to the audience and the audience's feelings. 

4 The clown offers energy and fun for the audience to enjoy. The clown is additionally energized by the audience when they like the clown.

5 The clown has high hopes that they can do something that might be interesting or bring them some status or please the audience. They make promises beyond their abilities and take risks in their endless desire to please the audience. When they inevitably fail, they admit it and are truly sorry. 

6 The clown knows how to make an entrance for the audience and how to make an exit for the audience. 

William Irvine

You always know when you're doing something for the first time, and you almost never know when you're doing something for the last time.

Winston Churchill

If you're going through Hell, keep going.

Samuel Johnson, Johnsonian Miscellanies, Vol II

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Saul Steinberg, via Kurt Vonnegut in A Man Without A Country

...what you respond to in any work of art is the artist's struggle against his or her limitations.