Caroline Lindy in The AI Doc or How I Became an Apocaloptimist

We're gonna have to do a lot of things we haven't even thought of yet.

Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. 

Tom Stoppard

“I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself.”

Franz Kafka, "The Zurau Aphorisms"

All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.

Sylvia Plath, “Mirror”

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart.

The Diary of Anais Nin, November 1933

When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.

 

William Blake, "The Grey Monk"

… But vain the Sword and vain the Bow, They can never work War's overthrow. The Hermit's prayer and the Widow's tear Alone can free the World from fear. For a Tear is an intellectual thing, And a Sigh is the sword of an Angel King, And the bitter groan of the Martyr's woe Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow. ---

Wendell Berry, “How to Be a Poet”

How To Be a Poet
(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work, 
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens. 
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
There are only sacred places
And desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb 
the silence from which it came.

Wendell Berry (RIP), "Do Not Be Ashamed"

You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockets,
their ears wired to your bed.

…