W.S. Gilbert Quotes

I lie in the dark wondering if this quiet in me nowis a beginning or an end.

I wish I could fly like that hawk, rising and falling with the still spaces in the air, far above all this sickness and death and evil.

During our first date, I wanted to hold your hand so badI almost cut mine offand threw it at youto see if you would catch it

You've got to be smart enough to write and stupid enough not to think about all the things that might go wrong.

Why write wrong if the writing won’t right the wrong? (90)

Religion is for those who don't want to go to hell, and spirituality is for those who have already been there.

People frequently point to communication as a problem, because its easy to notice, but usually it is a symptom of an underlying problem with a relationship posture.

It takes two to have a fight.

As the saying goes, "Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them." Why would I want to keep my limitations?

Fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun.

I am touched that you are trying to comprehend me. A friend could not be more loving.

If we are to survive, I must start and end my war this same day.

Marriage is a game. They (the anxious and powerful) set the rules. We (the ordinary and subversive) bow obediently before those rules. And then we go home and do whatever the hell we want anyhow.

The emotional place where a marriage begins is not nearly as important as the emotional place where a marriage finds itself toward the end, after many years of partnership.

I am happy to be alone. Perhaps this is true. Or perhaps I am the biggest coward of all.

My dear husband Thomas has informed me that I can't walk without natural hip action. The more I slow to adjust my walk, the more my hips determine to swing of their own accord.

Songs are dangerous, songs are subversive and can change your life.

The heart is a foreign country whose language none of us is good at.

Never write a book and let it sit on a shelf.

I left this conversation hours ago, but somehow my mouth is still moving, words are still forming, and none have seemed to offend. Amazing, the mind. My mind, I mean. Not hers.

... "The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world, " says an old Buddhist teaching. In other words: Get used to it.

Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes." (quoting Jack Gilbert)

[C]reative living is a path for the brave.

There’s this human capacity for joy and endurance, even when things are at their worst. A joy that occurs not despite our suffering, but within it.

No longer will we (women) agree to protect the hearth at the price of extinguishing the fire within ourselves.

I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady.

There are many good things about getting older, but no one knows what they are.

Beyond the satiation level of income, you can buy more pleasurable experiences, but you will lose some of your ability to enjoy the less expensive ones.

... you should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead.

I'm not surprised he wants to challenge me here, where no one can protect me. He thinks I'm a weak woman. He thinks wrong.

Devo farmi le ossa is how they say it in Italian. “I need to make my bones.

If you don't learn to travel comfortably alongside your fear, then you'll never be able to go anywhere interesting or do anything interesting.

Some are born to love, and some to fight. How can I ever succeed at both?

A good-enough novel violently written now is better than a perfect novel meticulously written never.

[There is a] quiet glory [in] merely making things, and then sharing those things with an open heart and no expectations.

Creativity is a crushing chore and a glorious mystery. The work wants to be made, and it wants to be made through you.

And at the end of your days, you can thank creativity for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence.

Work with all your heart, because - I promise - if you show up for your work day after day after day after day. you just might get lucky enough some random morning to burst into bloom.

We are all walking repositories of hidden treasures.

It might have been done before, but it hasn’t been done by you!

It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case if that I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something

Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into the realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome.

You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures

Fear is always triggered by creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome. This is nothing to be ashamed of. It is, however, something to be dealt with.

I have never created anything in my life that did not make me feel, at some point or another, like I was the guy who just walked into a fancy ball wearing a homemade lobster costume.

Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.

Do what you love to do, and do it with both seriousness and lightness. At least then you will know that you have tried and that--whatever the outcome--you have traveled a noble path.

We are all just beginners here, and we shall all die beginners.

success is key, Knowledge is power, when we put them both we make an honor

I was doing something I'd never done before. And what will I be able to do tomorrow that I cannot yet do today?