That's what America's all about, man, if it's about anything. You can choose your own name. Michael Ventura More Quotes by Michael Ventura More Quotes From Michael Ventura All paths cause pain, so to chose the safe over the audacious will not give you less pain, only less beauty. Michael Ventura pain beauty giving It may be that it is not given to us to know when we are angels. We may only be given to know when others are. This may be one of the reasons we need each other so. Michael Ventura angel may needs Leave people alone when they tell you to leave them alone. Michael Ventura mean people needs Creativity is an innate function in a human being, as we see in tribal peoples, who spent their considerable leisure time making religious artifacts and sacred art. That is what I would call a direct culture, in that everybody in it is directly in touch with all the elements, both of the culture and of the environment. Michael Ventura creativity religious art Be careful how you choose your enemy, for you will come to resemble him. The moment you adapt your enemy's methods your enemy has won. The rest is suffering and historical opera. Michael Ventura historical suffering enemy Stop tolerating in your leaders what you would not tolerate in your friends. Michael Ventura justice war life The people you have to lie to, own you. The things you have to lie about, own you. Michael Ventura positive-thinking lying thinking My spirit life very much depends on my work. My work very much depends on my spirit life. And I pray every day, as part of my own ritual, to a god I believe in, not a god somebody else believes in. Michael Ventura praying spirit believe To be physically astute and psychologically tended, yet morally insulated and conceptually blind--is to be crazy, not healthy. Michael Ventura healthy crazy blind An artist without obsession isn't worth a damn! Michael Ventura damn obsession artist I try to write into the heart of experience. Then, through the experience of the writing, that heart reveals itself to me. To write it down for others, as a door to go through it they choose, is the price of the experience, the price of the ticket. This is the demand that God, if you like, puts on you for being an artist. Michael Ventura artist heart writing There are writers I know and respect who are very good about what's outside, and not too hot about what's inside. Michael Ventura very-good knows hot Creativity is the vulnerability to spiritual and physical sensation, and to experience, combined with and acting upon a certain level of skill, combined with the compulsion or longing or need or desire to give. Michael Ventura creativity skills spiritual The value of having an inner map of the world as it is (not as it's broadcast) is this: it allows you to know that your task is larger than yourself. If you choose, just by virtue of being a decent person, you are entrusted with passing on something of value through a dark, crazy time-preserving your integrity, in your way, by your acts and your very breathing for those who will build again when this chaos exhausts itself. Michael Ventura crazy dark integrity Our choices are truncated in evil's presence. Michael Ventura our-choices choices evil Courage can't make you an artist, but without that courage, you won't remain one for long. First is the courage to be alone in the room where you create, and the courage to face that indefinitely, with no one to say if you are any good or not. Then, there is the courage to follow your work wherever it's going to take you. And the courage to fight for your work. Michael Ventura fighting artist long If your vulnerability has become hardened, it's very, very difficult to be creative. Michael Ventura hardened difficult creative I never get my creativity flowing. I'm a pro, this is how I earn my living. If it don't flow, I don't eat. Michael Ventura creativity flow ifs Most of us aren't very graceful about not having our needs met, when and how we want them met. Michael Ventura mets want needs People are judged continuously everywhere on the most intimate level by the prices on their head. Most of them accept the judgment. It's very hard to have self-respect, or to maintain a state of creativity under these conditions. Michael Ventura creativity self people
