Assia Diaw

“Dandy, sans pitié demandée, sans pitié donnée, chevalier solitaire, moine en dentelle, paillard chipoteur, artiste difficile, prince du faste, héros aveugle ou voyeur des fascinations qu'il suscite et décourage, officiant missionné du culte sans rituel d'une beauté qu'il veut et sait toujours inaccessible. Flèche inexorable au fulgurant tracé, tel est le dandy, fidèle à son engagement total. Aucune cible terrestre ne saurait l'arrêter, et les plus captivantes sont pour lui transparentes. C'est au cœur même de Dieu qu'il doit atteindre, flèche de désir, c'est au cœur de Dieu qu'il doit ficher son cri.”
― Françoise Dolto, Le dandy, solitaire et singulier

“Living life as an artist is a practice.
You are either engaging in the practice
or you’re not.

It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it.
It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.”
You are either living as a monk or you’re not.

We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output.

The real work of the artist
is a way of being in the world.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

“This is not where she pictured herself at this point in life, but then again, she had always had trouble even envisioning being alive past thirty. All the possibilities she had seen in her own circles—getting married, getting divorced, raising kids, aspirational suburban grilling—each of them felt tragic in their own right, all equally dead ends. Something inside of her had always felt like it was decaying, doomed, not long for this world. But telling that to anyone would make her feel crazy.”
― Samantha Allen, Patricia Wants to Cuddle

“I wasn’t a debater by nature and somewhere along the way had come to believe that what I felt, if it couldn’t be articulated or defended, was invalid. Maybe that’s why I thought I had to listen to Zev, who was clear in his beliefs and never wavered.”
― Daisy Alpert Florin, My Last Innocent Year