LITERARY QUOTES THAT NOURISH MY ART

Words are powerful – they have the strength to remind us of what is eternal, of truths that must not be forgotten, they spark our imagination, motivation, and hope, but above all, they live within us until the very end. Whenever I need encouragement or a reminder of what truly matters, I turn to quotes from world literature – those little beacons that nourish my art and my inner world, inspiring me to create and to feel more deeply.

I don’t know whether my first love was a book or the painting – for me, the two have always been deeply intertwined. What I do know is that I became aware early on of the power books hold: that feeling that there exists an entire world you can lose yourself in, no matter what is happening around you. That world endures, it understands you, and it never leaves. We rarely remember every book we read, but the emotions that color certain words remain forever.

Instead of teleportation, we have books, in the absence of experience, courage, peace, and the spectrum of emotions we strive to feel, we return to those sentences that strike like drumbeats, so powerful and direct, hitting the target and drowning out everything around us. That word which is completely stripped bare, with nowhere to hide, exposed and vulnerable—such a word is never forgotten.

Here, I’ve gathered a random selection of quotes that have left their deep mark on me (and there are undoubtedly many more of them) and have accompanied me through the years. Some may already be familiar to you – perhaps you even breathe and live through them yourself. Maybe you, too, will recognize something of your own in them – a reminder, an encouragement, or simply the beauty of words that never fade.

I would love to know which of these quotes are your favorites, and which are yours, the ones that guide you, follow you and perhaps even haunt you at times :)

“The Brothers Karamazov” ― F. M. Dostoyevsky

"I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, 'I exist.' In thousands of agonies -- I exist. I'm tormented on the rack -- but I exist! Though I sit alone in a pillar -- I exist! I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, I know it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there."

"Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all; and when once thou perceive this, thou wilt thenceforward grow every day to a fuller understanding of it: until thou come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal."

“War and Peace” ― L. N. Tolstoy

"But believe me, my dear boy, there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they will do it all."

"They seized me and shut me in, holding me captive. Whom? Me? — my immortal soul. Ha! Ha! He laughed, and tears welled in his eyes. Pierre looked up at the sky, at the countless flickering stars fading into infinity. And all of that is mine, all of that is within me, all of that is me! And they have captured all of it, and locked it up in a shack of planks."

"In captivity, in the shed, Pierre had learned, not with his mind, but with his whole being, his life, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him and that all unhappiness comes not from lack, but from superfluity; but now, in these last three weeks of the march, he had learned a new and more comforting truth - he had learned that there is nothing frightening in the world. He had learned that, as there is no situation in the world in which a man can be happy and perfectly free, so there is no situation in which he can be perfectly unhappy and unfree."

“The Light of the Microcosm"

― Petar II Petrovic Njegos

“From every point of view behold man,

Judge him as you will

The secret of man is the highest!

Man is the chosen substance of the Creator:

If the East brings forth the light of the sun,

If being itself burns in radiant beams,

If the earth is not but a vision,

The human soul is immortal;

We are but a spark in mortal dust,

We are a flame engulfed in darkness.”

"The Bridge on Drina"  ―Ivo Andrić

“All the Drinas of this world are crooked; they will never be able to be made entirely straight; yet we must never cease striving to straighten them.”

“The Spring of Ivan Galeb” ― Vladan Denica

“And on the road to the city I thought: why are they in such a hurry? Are they afraid they won’t make it to their share of suffering and bitter realizations? During the long solitary soliloquies in the hospital, I learned that every haste is in vain and every unrest fruitless; everything is met in due time, the meaning or meaninglessness of everything is revealed all the same. One way or another, a man completes his entire circle. So why then such hurry?”

“The Little Prince” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them...In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night...You - only you - will have stars that can laugh."

"All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems... But all these stars are silent. You-You alone will have stars as no one else has them..."

"And here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

“Lust For Life” ―Irving Stone

“The artist has the liberty to exaggerate, to create in his novel a world more beautiful, more simple, more consoling than ours.”

“Art is a battle; in art, you must put in your own skin.”

“He looked at his work. It smelled of bacon, smoke, and potatoes. Vincent smiled. He had painted his Angelus. He had captured what is eternal within what is transient. The Brabant peasants would never die.”

"The Bridge Across Forever" ― Richard Bach

“Sometimes it seems that there are no longer any dragons on Earth, no longer any knights, and that no princess wanders through mysterious forests, charming deer and butterflies with her smile. Sometimes we think we live in a time without boundaries, without adventure; that fate exists far away, beyond the horizon, and that brilliant visions have long since ridden away, never to return. I’m so glad we’re wrong. Not only are princesses, knights, wizards, dragons, secrets, and adventures all around us, but they represent the only true reality of this world!

"The Old Man and the Sea" ―Ernest Hemingway

“But man is not made for defeat.

A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

“The Great Gatsby” ― F. S. Fitzgerald

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning…So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

"The Journals of Sylvia Plath” ― Sylvia Plath

“Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn.”

“Wuthering Heights” ― Emily Brontë

 “I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”