Most of All

"But most of all, I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they are going.” 

 - Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Anxiety can just as well express itself by muteness as by a scream.” - Søren Kierkegaard

“My heart feels so heavy and I don’t know how to carry it.” - Sharon Dogar, Annexed

L’âme d’autrui est une forêt obscure où il faut marcher avec précaution...The soul of another is a dark forest in which one must tread with caution. - Claude Debussy

“Tread softly, Breathe peacefully, Laugh hysterically.” - Nelson Mandela

“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”

“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

RIP Nelson Mandela

prison  bar installation by Marco Cianfanelli


"This represents the momentum gained in the struggle through the symbolic of Mandela’s capture. The 50 columns represent the 50 years since his capture…"

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

Make Good Art: Neil Gaiman’s Advice on the Creative Life

When things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician — make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor — make good art. IRS on your trail — make good art. Cat exploded — make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before — make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too. I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” 1984, George Orwell

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

“Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”