Quotations

"Happiness is the best facelift."

— Joni Mitchell, Canadian musician, born 1943

"When the world becomes a massive mess with nobody at the helm, it's time for artists to make their mark."

— Joni Mitchell, Canadian musician, born 1943

"Depression can be the sand that makes the pearl. Most of my best work came out of it."

— Joni Mitchell, Canadian musician, born 1943

"Her lips on his could tell him better than all her stumbling words."

— Margaret Mitchell, American novelist, born 1900

"Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect."

— Margaret Mitchell, American novelist, born 1900

"Every two or three years, I knock off for a while. That way I'm always the new girl in the whorehouse."

— Robert Mitchum, American actor, born 1917

"These kids only want to talk about acting method and motivation. in my day all we talked about was screwing and overtime."

— Robert Mitchum, American actor, born 1917

"It is your duty in life to save your dream."

— Amadeo Modigliani, Italian painter, born 1884

"When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes."

— Amadeo Modigliani, Italian painter, born 1884

"I wonder if, in the dark night of the sea, the octopus dreams of me."

— Navarre Scott Momaday, Kiowa poet, born 1934

"We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined."

— Navarre Scott Momaday, Kiowa poet, born 1934

"To encounter the sacred is to be alive at the deepest center of human existence. Sacred places are the truest definitions of the earth; they stand for the earth immediately and forever; they are its flags and shields. If you would know the earth for what it really is, learn it through its sacred places. At Devil’s Tower or Canyon de Chelly or the Cahokia Mounds, you touch the pulse of the living planet; you feel its breath upon you. You become one with a spirit that pervades geologic time and space."

— Navarre Scott Momaday, Kiowa poet, born 1934

"In the beginning was the word, and it was spoken."

— Navarre Scott Momaday, Kiowa poet, born 1934

"If you could have that one day back, the one that you have kept a secret in your soul, what day would it be? What? One among the many? Well, let me make you this offering: It would be the day on which I stood on the rim of Monument Valley and beheld those ineffable monoliths for the first time. I was young, you see, like a fledgling who leaves the nest and flies out over the earth. I saw beyond time, into timelessness. It was the first and holiest of all days. On such a day— on that original day—did the First Man behold the First World. It filled him with wonder and humility. Then and there, looking for one enchanted moment into eternity, I was the First Man. I was present at Creation."

— Navarre Scott Momaday, Kiowa poet, born 1934