Audubon on other minds and the secret knowledge of animals, the paradox of joy with Nick Cave and Lisel Mueller, how Dostoyevsky became a writer
Joy is a delicious luxury that we experience most cautiously, for tragedy conceals itself around every corner.
Lisa See • The Island of Sea Women: A Novel
To be an artist is to live suspended above the abyss between recognition and artistic value, never quite knowing whether your art will land on either bank, or straddle both, or be swallowed by the fathomless pit of obscurity. We never know how our work stirs another mind or touches another heart, how it tenons into the mortise of the world. We
... See moreMaria Popova • “Berryman” by W.S. Merwin: Some of the Finest and Most Soul-Salving Advice on How to Stay Sane as an Artist
We suffer as human beings, but out of that can come enormous joys, and genuine happiness, too. It can run in tandem with this ordinary sense of suffering. Otherwise, joy doesn’t resonate fully. Joy seems to leap forth out of suffering. Regardless of your loss, you see how beautiful, how meaningful, how joyful the world can suddenly be. Human beings... See more