Quotes About Passion

It was a formidable cry of anger … Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?

You can only create if you can care

Of all types of human being, only the artist takes it upon him to say that he cannot work.

For you can only create if you care.

Zeal was not enough. Orthodoxy was unconsciousness.

Jättes kõrvale vajaduse elatist teenida, on minu meelest kirjutamisel, vähemalt proosa kirjutamisel, neli suurt motiivi. Erineval määral eksisteerivad nad igas kirjanikus, proportsiooniti aeg-ajalt varieerudes vastavalt õhkkonnale, milles ta elab.

Preceding accomplishment must be desire. Thy desires must be strong and definite.

This desire is inherent in the human race.

Hay muchas cosas que me gustan, pero nada reemplaza al trabajo".

Je n'ai pas cessé de l'être si c'est d'être jeune que d'aimer toujours !... L'humanité n'est pas un vain mot. Notre vie est faite d'amour, et ne plus aimer c'est ne plus vivre. (I have never ceased to be young, if being young is always loving... Humanity is not a vain word. Our life is made of love, and to love no longer is to live no longer.)

The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.

J'ai un but, une tâche, disons le mot, une passion. Le métier d'écrire en est une violente et presque indestructible. (I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one.) [Letter to Jules Boucoiran, 4 March 1831]

Often a heart capable of loving seeks in vain where to bestow its love, and comes forth pure of all earthly passions, perhaps to find a place in heaven. Ah! when God vouchsafes to us on earth that profound, passionate, ineffable sentiment, we must no longer desire or hope for paradise, Juliette; for paradise is the blending of two hearts in a kiss of love. And when we have found it here on earth, what matters it whether it be in the arms of a saint or of one of the damned?

To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.

It really is true: doing what you please (i.e., what pleases you), with energy, will lead you to everything—to your particular obsessions and the ways in which you'll indulge them, to your particular challenges and the forms in which they'll convert into beauty, to your particular obstructions and your highly individualized obstruction breakers. We can't know what our writing problems will be until we write our way into them, and then we can only write our way out.

The work that stirs the greatest passion is also the work that creates around it the greatest silence, the strongest imperative to stand back and admire and let others admire, without interfering.

That's the whole game: Becoming convinced that there is a voice inside you that really, really knows what it likes, and getting better at hearing that voice and acting on its behalf. [...] How emphatically can you like what you like? How long are you willing to work on something, to ensure that every bit of it gets infused with some trace of your radical preference? -George Saunders

A Clinton staffer tells me his theory. Think about Frank Sinatra, he says: born to sing. Think about Willie Mays: born to play ball. These guys got their power from living lives perfectly suited to their natures. Same with Clinton: his life is perfectly suited to his nature.

And then she kissed me with a kiss I can only describe as melting

My point is that it's not the flavor of your taste that matters; it's the intensity with which you apply your taste that will cause the resulting work of art to feel highly organized.

The only way you're gonna be happy is to do the thing that only you can do--or at least try to.

The true runner is a very fortunate person. He has found something in him that is just perfect.

Great works of art pass through us like storm-winds, flinging open the doors of perception, pressing upon the architecture of our beliefs with their transforming powers.

Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature; and in all cases of passion admit reason to govern.