Reads tagged with “letters”
Darwin’s Greatest Regret and His Deathbed Reflection on What Makes Life Worth Living
“If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”
Coltrane on Creativity, Perseverance Against Rejection, and How Hardship Fuels Art
“Innovators always seek to revitalize, extend and reconstruct the status quo in their given fields… Quite often they are the rejects, outcasts, sub-citizens, etc. of the very societies to which they bring so much sustenance.”
Sylvia Plath on Living with the Darkness and Making Art from the Barely Bearable Lightness of Being
“One has to shut off that nagging part of the mind and go on without it with bravo and philosophy.”
Dignity, Daring, and Disability: The Pioneering Queer Composer and Defiant Genius Ethel Smyth on Making Music While Going Deaf
…with a side of Virginia Woolf’s elated infatuation.
The Storm, the Rainbow, and the Soul: Coleridge on the Interplay of Terror and Transcendence in Nature and Human Nature
“In the hollow… I sate for a long while sheltered, as if I had been in my own study in which I am now writing: there I sate with a total feeling worshipping the power and ‘eternal link’ of energy.”
Problems vs. Questions: Chekhov on How (Not) to Be a Writer and the Essence of Creative Work
“Anyone who says that the artist’s sphere leaves no room for questions, but deals exclusively with answers, has never done any writing or done anything with imagery.”
Rilke on the Relationship Between Solitude, Love, Sex, and Creativity
“There is only one solitude, and it is large and not easy to bear… People are drawn to the easy and to the easiest side of the easy. But it is clear that we must hold ourselves to the difficult.”
Einstein on the Political Power of Art
“Nothing can equal the psychological effect of real art — neither factual descriptions nor intellectual discussion.”
Nick Cave on Living with Loss and the Central Paradox of Grief as a Portal to Aliveness
“The paradoxical effect of losing a loved one is that their sudden absence can become a feverish comment on that which remains… a luminous super-presence.”
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