bookoasis: A book and a cup of coffee are two of life’s greatest pleasures. (Photo by meadbh metrustry)
A book and a cup of coffee are two of life’s greatest pleasures.
Tag: quote
Write because there is literature
I don’t write because there’s an audience. I write because there is literature.
Susan Sontag (via theparisreview)
Six-Word Memoir
Can do better, will do better.
Andre Dubus III, Six-Word Memoir from the Memoirville interview at Smith Magazine (via wwnorton)
Be authentic
Take note on these lessons from Wieden+Kennedy’s Executive Creative Director, John C Jay:
via SwissMiss
Be authentic. The most powerful asset you have is your individuality, what makes you unique. It’s time to stop listening to others on what you should do.
Work harder than anyone else and…
Photojojo!: 10 Lessons for Young Designers (and Photographers!)
Quote: John Steinbeck
One must withdraw for a time from life in order to set down that picture.
John Steinbeck (via theparisreview)
Human intelligence
The underestimation of the human intelligence is the worst sin of our time…
Mortimer J. Adler
A house without books…
Ein Haus ohne Bücher ist arm, auch wenn schöne Teppiche seinen Boden und kostbare Tapeten und Bilder die Wände bedecken.
(A house without books is poor, even if beautiful carpets cover its floor and expensive wallpapers cover the walls.)
Hermann Hesse (via germanheit)
Statistics are like a bikini
“Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is interesting. But what they hide is vital.”
–Aaron Levenstein, former Baruch College business professor
Link: Brand Autopsy http://ping.fm/Lh6cr
Knowing important from unimportant tasks
If instead I see my value as separating the important from the unimportant and making good decisions on the important, then I can go home at a reasonable hour, spend time with my family, ignore my email and phone messages all weekend long…
–Peter Norvig
Link: Knowing important from unimportant tasks
Quote: “Astonishment is the root of philosophy.”
~ Paul Tillich, The Writer’s Almanac
Rework is a really smart business book
Rework is a really smart business book written by the crew from 37signals. If you haven’t checked it out, you must. In the meantime, Gnat Gnat has done a nice job of summarizing the highlights in this downloadable cheat sheet (pdf).
Sometimes we have a conversation like this one
Verona De Tessant: Burt, are we f***-ups?
Burt Farlander: No! What do you mean?
Verona De Tessant: I mean, we’re 34…
Burt Farlander: I’m 33.
Verona De Tessant: …and we don’t even have this basic stuff figured out.
Burt Farlander: Basic, like how?
Verona De Tessant: Basic, like how to live.
Burt Farlander: We’re not f***-ups.
Verona De Tessant: We have a cardboard window.
Burt Farlander: [Looks at window] We’re not f***-ups.
Verona De Tessant: [Whispers] I think we might be f***-ups.
Burt Farlander: [Whispers back] We’re not f***-ups.— from the film Away We Go
decaffeinated coffee table
I bought a decaffeinated coffee table, you can’t even see a difference.
Author Unknown (via coffeechat)
Clients
Clients are the difference between art and design.
Michael Bierut (via soulellis)
i went to school for graphic design, and did not spend my nights getting drunk. instead, i worked my ass off, spent most of my outside-class time learning/trying/doing as much as possible, and then got an awesome job after graduating.
protip: if you’re lucky enough (and i mean it when i say lucky) to be in college, you should be spending all available time learning, trying, making things, messing things up, experimenting and READING. (seriously. they make sketchbooks with words in them already. they are just called books.)
i didn’t waste a single day. and neither should you. build your momentum and go with it.
for the but-i’m-an-artist’s: you want money? learn a technical skill related to your field and get good at it. then get better at it. jonathan harris built wefeelfine on the weekends while working a full time job. just sayin’.
final note: i had a BLAST in college, and miss it like crazy. working hard does not mean no-fun-allowed, it means relax harder 🙂
orginal image via synecdoche
2 Moral Lessons
Moral #1: “If you work hard, stay focused, and never give up, you will eventually get what you want in life.”
Moral #2: Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.
We treat our spiritual lives like the round of golf
‘Church isn’t boring because we’re not showing enough film clips, or because we play an organ instead of guitar. It’s boring because we neuter it of its importance. Too often we treat our spiritual lives like the round of golf used to open George Barna’s Revolution. At the end of my life, I want my friends and family to remember me as someone who battled for the Gospel, who tried to mortify sin in my life, who found hard for life, and who contended earnestly for the faith. Not just a nice guy who occasionally noticed the splendor of the mountains God created, while otherwise just trying to enjoy myself, manage my schedule, and work on my short game.
-Ted Kluck, from Why We Love The Church: In Praise of Institutions And Organized Religion
HT: Pyromaniacs: I Lose, You Win (via nickbogardus) (via papertowngirl)
You will become literature
ireadintothings: You will become literature, and you’re already a poem in my head.
We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.
We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering -these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love -these are what we stay alive for.
Dead Poets Society (via ireadintothings)
Magazines won’t die
Speaking from personal experience, I’ve noticed something lately. The more I use technology (and I am on this damn computer a lot…too much), the more I want to read a magazine. But I want different things than I wanted five years ago. Frankly, I want a break. I want to be surprised and delighted …
The Internet is a technology that enables people to go out in SEARCH of things. I’m all for that and love it to pieces. But sometimes, I just want things to FIND me. Sometimes, I am just tired of looking and typing and seeking, and I just want to sit on my comfortable couch and be surprised when I turn the page.
That’s why I believe magazines won’t die.
I exist in real life
ireadintothings: I find it really hard to grasp that I exist in real life, and that I am not just a character from my own autobiography for people to read about. But that’s all that I will be, eventually. I guess as a writer, that’s your aspiration.
Coffee grounds
i’m orange peels. i’m coffee grounds. i’m wisdom.
Marjory The Trash Heap, Fraggle Rock, Season 1, Episode 1
Searching for a perfect utopia
know anyone like this? okay, okay, don’t start pointing fingers…
“many of us are so bad because we’re trying so hard to be good…. some of us are trying so hard to be good because and we’re trying to keep the bad people out… you’re the ones that are complaining about everything… you’re looking for this perfect utopia where everybody does everything just so and usually it is according to the morals you set up by picking and choosing form various churches and various moral agencies and you’re saying, ‘these are the things you have to have to line up to be right and we won’t be part of you until become one of us.’ ….you’re the folks that won’t join a church because they don’t do everything just so and you’re not willing to even dialogue about it and if it’s not this way it’s no-way…”
-kurt hannah
Ethics, not morality
Christians should not talk so much about “morality,” a word derived from mores, the beliefs of a particular tribe. Ethics, however, are based on ideas that are true at all times and in all cultures.
Coffeehouse Junkie 