Quotes About Openness

L.A. is kind of flat these days; I guess Austin and other places are like that now. But that's what I wanted to get across: You could be as crazy as you wanted, and that was OK. You didn't have to be good; people would still come and hear you.

I have no agenda. I'll play anywhere. All I need is a reason to believe that it's a good place for me and that I'm wanted, and I'm coming.

I want to have a relationship with my kids. I want them to be free with me, to have a good relationship.

Having no expectations is a really good thing.

I don't think secrets are a good thing. I think they are a cancer of the soul. So I decided to come out.

When I don't have a good time, it's usually because there's a stiffness that stifles creativity.

Kids - in a really good way - can talk about their differences without the baggage that adults have.

The lonely one offers his hand too quickly to whomever he encounters.

One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.

He who has attained the freedom of reason to any extent cannot, for a long time, regard himself otherwise than as a wanderer on the face of the earth - and not even as a traveler towards a final goal, for there is no such thing. But he certainly wants to observe and keep his eyes open to whatever actually happens in the world; therefore he cannot attach his heart too firmly to anything individual; he must have in himself something wandering that takes pleasure in change and transitoriness.

In the end we are always rewarded for our good will, our patience, fair-mindedness, and gentleness with what is strange.

To put up with people, to keep open house with one's heart — that is liberal, but that is merely liberal. One recognizes those hearts which are capable of noble hospitality by the many draped windows and closed shutters, they keep their best rooms empty. Why? Because they expect guests with whom one does not put up.

It is difficult and painful for the ear to listen to anything new; we hear strange music badly.

If there are any persons who contest a received opinion ... let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought, if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of our convictions, to do with much greater labor for ourselves. —John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Life and study have persuaded me of the openness of history. There is no inevitability in history. Thinking about what might have happened, what could have happened, is a necessary element in trying to understand what did happen. And if, as I believe, individual acts of decency and courage make a difference, then they need to be recorded and remembered.

The way I feel about rehearsals is that the best idea wins.

We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.

When I'm drawing, I'm drawing with the light, being completely open and creative. I can't draw in the evening. I need light and I need warmth if it is a summer thing, and I need cold if it is a winter collection. The good thing is that I have houses to go to whenever I'm working. I draw according to the place.

One of the challenges of innovation is figuring out how to wipe your mind clean about what you should be doing at any given moment, and not having a religious attachment to what's gotten you there thus far.

Make it your habit not to be critical about small things.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

The lips of the wise are as the doors of a cabinet; no sooner are they opened, but treasures are poured out before thee.

I would say that the West is very young, it's very corrupt. We're not very wise. And I think we're hopeful that there is a place that is ancient and wise and open and filled with light.

Planning is like taking on blinders. I think it is a wise thing to be open to whatever shows up on your doorstep.