76 Quotes by Gail Godwin

When someone has enough money, logistics can be worked out in no time.

What we feel compelled to do, whether it’s making art or giving your life to God, evolves out of the inner fabric of our lives, however disguised the patterns may be to us. The work, the vocation, is an attempt on the part of the would-be artist to fulfill in an inner way, in a symbolic way, what the outer world is failing to provide him with in the service of wholeness.

If you are an artist, you learn how to trap the yearning and put it where you want it, put it where it goes. That’s the secret all true artists come to know.

There are two kinds of people. One kind, you can just tell by looking at them at what point they congealed into their final selves. It might be a very nice self, but you know you can expect no more suprises from it. Whereas, the other kind keep moving, changing... They are fluid. They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young. In my opinion, they are the only people who are still alive. You must be constantly on your guard against congealing.

May their having each other make more of them both.

Not everybody gets to grow up. First you have to survive your childhood, and then begins the hard work of growing into it.

We can’t be free until we can tell our story, and only by telling it convincingly can we each do our bit to help the world grow up.

There was a great deal of energy and contentment to be gotten simply from not living a lie.

How glibly and thoughtlessly that phrase ‘make us grow’ slides off our tongues. As if growth were always a happy, shapely matter: leaves unfurling, blossoms opening, hearts and minds joyously stretching toward more light. Whereas the fact of the matter was, when we asked for growth, we were asking for a mess. Exploding tempers, privately nursed little petri dishes of resentments, insecure stumblings into dangerous new places.