Wendell Berry

People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other.
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

Telling a story is like reaching into a granaryfull of wheat and drawing out a handful.

Telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told.
― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

You are your own beginning.

 “You are your own beginning. Every day, every hour, every minute, you start again. There is no point wishing you were someone else, you are who you are—start there.”
― A.M. Homes, Music for Torching

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.

 Ralph Waldo Emerson

Courage

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. Ralph Waldo Emerson

include all things in your gratitude

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

This new day is too dear

“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Collected Poems and Translations

independence of solitude

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Prose Works Of Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Select and collect all the words and sentences

 “Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

To Say Goodbye

The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. To say goodbye is to die a little.
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.

 Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake. Raymond Chandler

It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.

  ― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

There was a desert wind blowing that night.

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

― Raymond Chandler, Red Wind: A Collection of Short Stories

Chandler

“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely 

Eugene O'Neill

Dogs...do not ruin their sleep worrying about how to keep the objects they have, and to obtain the objects they have not. There is nothing of value they have to bequeath except their love and their faith.  

I am so far from being a pessimist...on the contrary, in spite of my scars, I am tickled to death at life.

I knew it! I knew it! Born in a hotel room and, goddamn it, dying in a hotel room. 

Eugene O'Neill (his last words)     

Man's loneliness is but his fear of life.

― Eugene O'Neill