I was forgetting that an artist also just stares at a piece of paper or canvas all day. It somehow never occurred to me to connect these two diverse creative modes.

I also find the desert a wonderful metaphor for desolation and yet the exact counterpart of the ocean with its hidden depths. Both are vast, harsh, implacable, homogenous to the untrained eye, and beautiful. Bothallow the wind to roam on the surface. And both serve as wonderful vehicles for human survival stories.

You cannot be fair to others without first being fair to yourself. Know that a well-honed sense of justice is a measure of personal experience, and all experience is a measure of self. Know that the highest expression of justice is mercy. Thus, as the supreme judge in your own court, you must have compassion for yourself. Otherwise, cede your gavel.

Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind. Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exultation. Suddenly, you know you are alive.

Freedom is not a license to act but a license to exercise free choices in any given situation.

Consolation has been wrongly reviled. Consolation is not apathy or inaction. It is not closing one's eyes to the evils of the world. Rather, consolation is the first step in regaining personal equilibrium and strength, which necessarily precedes the ability to act.

I've just been bitten on the neck by a vampire... mosquito. Does that mean that when the night comes I will rise and be annoying?