Universal Connections Quotes

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.

If we remove all judgment and preconceived ideas of who a person is, the truth is, we are all blessed with the same emotions and desires.

My life is essentially not so unique. On some deeper levels we feel the same, we know the same things. Therefore if I show my life 365 days, moments from those days, it will reflect and it will have connection with lives of all of us.

All of the things I used to obsess over, I'm no longer as obsessed with. I have new concerns but they're a little more existential or cosmic.

There is a kind of silver spiderweb that's spun around the world, and the strands of that web are certain loves and certain understandings. And if we follow those, and if we walk those strands, we're going to meet others at the intersections who have been walking the same way across this web. And when we meet, there's a kind of "I know who you are."

I just want my work to be part of the elemental world.

And as journalists we look for differences - differences between countries, cultures, classes, and communities. We're very sensitized to difference, but it's much harder to write about similarities across countries, cultures, classes, and communities.

The only things in my life that compatibly exists with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.

I think what really stays with me is the idea that you can write music about the texture of a wall, and everything is in some way connected.

A complete autobiography would indeed be a picture of the outer and inner universe photographed upon one little life's consciousness. For does not the whole world, seen and unseen, go to the making up of every human being?

All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.

One of the things I wanted to introduce in The Same Sea beyond transcending the conflict, is the fact that deep down below all our secrets are the same.

My understanding of the creative process is simply that all cultures and all concerns meet at a certain point, the human point in which everything is related to one another. That has been my creative experience. I never know who's influencing me at any time.

The only thing I know is that we came from the stars, and that we have the same material as the stars. That's all that I know. Everything else I don't know.

I came to believe the green fuse that drives spring and summer through the world is essentially a literary energy. That the world was more than a place. Life was more than an event. It was all one thing - and that thing was story.

Drugs shouldn't be used for recreation although they can be, but ultimately the point of psychedelics is to put you in touch with the powers of the universe.

When the whole world reads your books, is there any other happiness for a writer? I am happy that my books are read in 57 languages. But I am focused on Istanbul not because of Istanbul but because of humanity. Everyone is the same in the end.

It's interesting work for me to tell my life, as a possibility for other people to relate it to themselves - not so much to learn about me.

I need an inspiration that is grounded in reality while thoroughly transcendent.

I feel like people have a lot of the same good times and the same interests pretty much anywhere.

Seek art from every time and place, in any form, to connect with those who really move you.

I have grown to understand that no matter where we come from, human beings, at heart, are the same. Defining ourselves based on race, religion, and ethnicity is like betraying that.

I think because we're ourselves, we tend to think we're unique. 'I have problems that are just specific to me.' Then you connect with one of your parents and you realize, 'Oh yeah, we had all that stuff, too.' You're not that original. I mean, in a good way, because it makes you feel like you're connected and a part of the world and not an island.

The interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

I've spent my life capturing beautiful images. And whether in wilderness or in the downtown of a giant city, I find connections, universal rhythms, patterns and beauty that I recognize as a part of me, a part of all of us that celebrates life. It's my great pleasure to share with you that energy which inspires me; this great visual beauty of our world.