“Sometimes I tell myself, when I’m dealing with annoying adults, to picture the kid there. Because no matter how annoying the kid is, I can feel compassion for him or her.”

Claire Messud

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Q: Do you have words to live by?
A: Jim Jarmusch once told me “Fast, Cheap, and Good…pick two. If it’s fast and cheap it won’t be good. If it’s cheap and good it won’t be fast. If it’s fast and good it won’t be cheap.” Fast, cheap, and good…pick (2) words to live by.

Tom Waits

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“The key to eternal happiness is low overhead and no debt.”

Lynda Barry

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“In one of his poems, George Chapman, Shakespeare’s contemporary, compares time to a pollinating honeybee and the world to a flower garden, declaring strangely that ‘time’s golden thigh upholds the flowery body of the earth.’ He explains that when we use time correctly it brings harmony and legitimacy to life. The verse ends with an aphorism: ‘The use of time is fate.’ The phrase is inscribed on my workroom door. It’s in front of me now, in the flickering sunlight glancing off the river. The Use of Time Is Fate.”

David Esterly

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“Being alive is so extraordinary I don’t know why people limit it to riches, pride, security—all of those things life is built on. People miss so much because they want money and comfort and pride, a house and a job to pay for the house. And they have to get a car. You can’t see anything from a car. It’s moving too fast. People take vacations. That’s their reward—the vacation. Why not the life?”

Jack Gilbert

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“I remember standing on a street corner with the black painter Beauford Delaney down in the Village, waiting for the light to change, and he pointed down and said, Look. I looked and all I saw was water. And he said, Look again, which I did, and I saw oil on the water and the city reflected in the puddle. It was a great revelation to me. I can’t explain it. He taught me how to see, and how to trust what I saw. Painters have often taught writers how to see. And once you’ve had that experience, you see differently.”

James Baldwin

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“Be clear (and enthusiastic) about what you do
Some people call this the elevator pitch. It’s actually the standing-around-at-drinks pitch. (No one wants to make small talk in an elevator. Creepy and invasive.) You need to be able to explain what you do very succinctly and in an interesting manner.”

Mike Monteiro

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“Look, money is hard. It took me years to get comfortable with the idea of being a financial grownup. And I doubt that many of you got into this business for the money. I’m guessing you’re here because you love design. But to practice your craft you need to keep the lights on, and you need your financial house in order. The more attention you pay to this stuff at the right time, the less of your overall day you’ll spend worrying and fretting about it. Don’t worry about money, deal with money.”

Mike Monteiro

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“When you are completely off balance, so much so that you are certain you will topple over—you bring the paddle down hard on the water’s surface, the way ducks bat their wings. You will feel your kayak right itself. Only by moving in the direction you least trust can you be saved.”

Roger Rosenblatt

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“Genius is initiative on fire.”

Holbrook Jackson

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“I remember a backdrop of a brick wall I painted for a play. I painted each red brick in by hand. Afterwards it occurred to me that I could have just painted the whole thing red and put in the white lines.”

Joe Brainard

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“One should always sleep in all of one’s guest beds, to make sure that they are comfortable.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

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“The older I get, the less I care about people’s intentions.”

J. C. Herz

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“Don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main this is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.”

John Steinbeck

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“Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.”

T. S. Eliot

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