“The positive reception my films received abroad in the 60s helped me, they couldn’t fire me. And I kept bugging them. If they didn’t approve one script, then I came with another and another and I fought over each sentence. They knew that to deal with me meant an argument.

There is another story that general manager Jiří Purš jammed me between the doors. It wasn’t like that. The opposite is true. I was opening drawers looking for Ludvík Toman. I was looking for Toman in Purš’ office desk, making a hysterical scene, pretending that he was hiding from me. They all hid from me, in rest rooms and so on, because I kicked doors and opened windows threatening to jump out.

That’s how I survived, doing these kinds of [things]. But it was really seizures of rage, seizures where I didn’t care about anything. I was screaming at them, ‘There is nothing you can do to me! I am willing to lick a floor! You can do nothing to me! And if you decide to execute me, I will take you with me!'”

— Věra Chytilová (via Czech New Wave Filmmakers in Interviews)

“A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.”

— Mary Ruefle (via Madness, Rack, and Honey)

“May I always be blessed with the monotony, the dull sameness of identical days, my indistinguishable todays and yesterdays, so that I may enjoy with an open heart the fly that distracts me, drifting randomly past my eyes, the gust of laughter that wafts volubly from the street somewhere down below, the sense of vast freedom when the office closes for the night, and the infinite rest of my days off.”

— Fernando Pessoa

“I sure hope that you are reading books. Books of paper. Used books are cheap. One book will lead you to another. If you only read a page or three you will still get done with a fat book in a month or two. Read while falling alseep.

Don’t jump off buildings or kill millions of people in games. Read a book for your heart.”

— Gary Panter

“I’ve discovered that in lengthy prison terms, sensitive people are in danger of becoming embittered, developing grudges against the world, growing dull, indifferent and selfish. One of my main aims is to not yield an inch to such threats, regardless of how long I’m here. I want to remain open to the world, not to shut myself up against it; I want to retain my interest in other people and my love for them. I have different opinions of different people, but I cannot say I hate anyone in the world. I have no intention of changing in that regard. If I did, it would mean I had lost. Hatred has never been either my program, or the point of departure for my actions. And that must not change.”

— Václav Havel

“I believe life is a continuum, and that no one really dies, they just drop their physical body and we’ll all meet again, like the song says. It’s sad but it’s not devastating if you think like that. Otherwise I don’t see how anybody could ever, once they see someone die, that they’d just disappear forever and that’s what we’re all bound to do. I’m sorry but it just doesn’t make any sense, it’s a continuum, and we’re all going to be fine at the end of the story.”

— David Lynch (RIP)

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

— James Baldwin

“This is also why we have friends, isn’t it? To laugh about random stuff and tell stupid jokes and tease each other and goof off?

I think that’s where I landed with my heavy friendship thoughts this week: a huge chunk of every day should be spent goofing off, and a huge chunk of every friendship should be about laughing and acting absolutely idiotic together.

Life is too short for relentless emotional heavy lifting. We need to be ridiculous and obnoxious and sing dumb songs into each other’s voicemails. We need more dance parties and puppet shows. Friendship should be loving and real, but above all else, it should be fun.”

— Heather Havrilesky

“We know that in the history of all arts, the arrival of perfect realism coincided with perfect decadence. Why is it that when technique is primitive everything is beautiful, and when technique is perfected, almost everything is ugly? Technical perfection can only create boredom, because it only reproduces nature. Why the hell would anyone go to a movie when they can have the real thing? So imitating nature can only read to the death of an art form.”

— Jean Renoir