A Quote by Michael Winter
The greatness of being an artist is the kind of ridiculous guffaw you can have at one's own misery. 'That was miserable! Now how can I write about it?'
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Man is so great that his greatness appears even in the consciousness of his misery. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is true that it is misery indeed to know one's self to be miserable; but then it is greatness also. In this way, all man's miseries go to prove his greatness. They are the miseries of a mighty potentate, of a dethroned monarch.
The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.
I wasn't present for my own life for a long time. I wasn't there; I wasn't in my relationships; I wasn't in my band; I wasn't in my soul - I was disconnected from all of it. I would let myself live in a miserable situation forever, mostly of my own making. I made my own misery and made the people around me miserable.
Do you recall, from your childhood on, how very much this life of yours has longed for greatness? I see it now, how from the vantage point of greatness it longs for even greater greatness. That is why it does not let up being difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow.
How do you write when you're not miserable? The solution, of course, is to make yourself miserable about not writing.
I think being an activist and an artist is an interesting contradiction, because so often they are at odds with one another. When you write as an artist you have to clean the palate of your own politics in creating characters and activism is kind of the exact opposite.
I am an artist, and I understand the pros and cons of being an artist, and the pressures of being an artist, and how much being an artist can be torture to people around you; you know, you friends and your family and how material you can be, and how it's hard to take criticism and all the things like that.
Insecurity is miserable. That's the bottom line. We don't need it. We don't want it. And we really can live without it. So what would happen if we quite being accomplices in our own misery?
To be honest, I’m more concerned with living my life than writing about my life. I feel like that’s really the main thing I know now that I didn’t know when I was younger — and that is that you have to have a life to write about one. If you’re more worried about having experiences so you can write about them, I think you’re kinda being ridiculous, and I think a lot of young people look at it like that.
But how to explain suffering because of a man? It's not explainable. With that kind of suffering, a person feels as if they're in hell, because there is no nobility, no greatness - only misery.
It's Will," she said. "He's being absolutely ridiculous in the dining room." Charlotte looked puzzled. "How is this different from him being totally ridiculous in the library or the weapons room or any of the other places he's usually ridiculous?
We make our days pleasant or miserable. If we insist on being miserable, irritable and nasty, more than likely the day will give us exactly what we give it. A day is too valuable to waste on misery and unhappiness.
It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.
You're giving up. You're slipping into being miserable and if you are being miserable, then it's all about you again. But it's not all about you. Love doesn't work that way.
I'm an artist, and an artist doesn't worry about being politically correct when I write.
The reconciliation is not based on the fact that one of the characters opens his eyes and says, "O brother! O sister! How terrible I was! How right and wonderful you were! Please forgive me! Let's hug and love each other from now until the rest of eternity!" This is not the kind of reconciliation I write about; I write about sad, sober, sometimes heart-breaking compromises.
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