Sometimes, life can be about simplicity and stillness, in the vein of a watchful guard amid shimmering works of art. But it is also about the head-down work of living and struggling and growing and creating.

Artists create records of transitory moments, appearing to stop their clocks. They help us believe that some things aren’t transitory at all but rather remain beautiful, true, majestic, sad, or joyful over many lifetimes—and here is the proof, painted in oils, carved in marble, stitched into quilts.

Art often derives from those moments when we would wish the world to stand still. We perceive something so beautiful, or true, or majestic, or sad, that we can’t simply take it in stride.

You are now entering a world in miniature, its terrain stretching from the mudflats of Mesopotamia to the cafés of Left Bank Paris and a thousand other places where humankind has really outdone itself. First, just get lost in the vastness of it all. Leave your meaner thoughts on the doorstep and try to feel, pleasantly, like a tiny insignificant

In my life ahead, I will be needed and have needs; the hope is I will do everything I can and have others do the same for me.

“dreadful martyrdom” takes place “while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.”

When the Met looks different, it’s often the beholder who’s changed.

life will stretch beyond its present horizons. That it will lurch and grind and ramble forward, and I had better steer its progress. In short, I have come to understand that my life will consist of chapters, which raises the possibility of bringing my current chapter to a close.

Meaning is always created locally. The greatest art is produced by people hemmed in by circumstances, making patchwork efforts to create something beautiful, useful, true.