preferred sculpting

"Painting is suitable only for women and feeble men." A lecture on Michelangelo here.

logistics

enter the dragon

"A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard."
- Bruce Lee

snow

Alfred Sisley, Snow ay Louveciennes, 1874

on adversity

"Life will never be just a walk through an open field."
- Russian proverb

cow

Sting and Stewart Copeland in AIR Studios Montserrat, 1981. Photo: Andy Summers

"Happiness is a bovine concept. They get it. We don't"
- Sting

cowboy

"Stats are for losers."
- Dallas Cowboys owner and 3x Super Bowl Champion Jerry Jones

machinery of the universe

Dr. Bromfenbrenner

Patient shows no ambition, no get-up-and-go, no vim.

He is riding the grand loopen-ze-loop ... that goes from the height of delusional gaiety ... to the trough of despair.

He is now near, but not yet at his lowest point. When he reaches bottom, he may erupt und pose a danger to himself ... and others.

Sidney J. Mussburger

Diagnosis, Dr. Bromfenbrenner?

Dr. Bromfenbrenner

Patient is eine manic-depressive paranoid, type B ... with acute schizoid tendencies.

lunar

Neil Young only records during full moons.

250

The number of times Anthony Hopkins reads and rereads each script.

father of minimalism

Question: How by looking at it can you declare it art?

Frank Stella: It's what anybody can do. If you want to look at art you can find it.

The most expensive books

From The Economist:

ON TUESDAY December 7th a complete volume of John James Audubon's "The Birds of America" fetched a record price at auction. The book, which stands more than three feet by two feet (91cm x 61cm) and includes 435 hand-coloured illustrations of birds from North America in life-size, reached $10.3m. The previous record for a book was another copy of Audubon's masterpiece, sold in 2000, which reached $10.2m in today's prices. Indeed, a list of the ten most-expensive books would include five copies of "The Birds of America". Our chart, therefore, strips out any repeat mentions of individual titles. Many of the most expensive books are works of non-fiction, such as Redouté's illustrations of flowers, Gutenberg's Bible and the Declaration of Independence.

movies that work and don't work

"You always aim for the bull's eye, but you don't always hit it."
- Clint Eastwood

Sokolowski's

routine

"I work in a cold, dark office. No sound."
- Jonathan Franzen

on writing

A Lady Writing, 1665-66

"If you read what you wrote last year and aren't embarrassed by it then you're not making progress."
- An English teacher

5th Symphony

"Whomever understands my music will be free from all the world's miseries."
- Beethoven

natural resource

"All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why."
- James Thurber [1894-1961]

Hitchens

life objective

"To be loved and respected by those who know you best."
- Robert Duvall [born 1931]

sticks

"I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth."
- Steve McQueen

assail

"Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand."
- Mark Twain

bedroom

101

“Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.”

- Thomas Carlyle 

acting

"The difference between Yale actors and Juilliard actors is that Yale actors are really interesting but you don't understand them and Juilliard actors you understand them but you don't give a fuck."
- Juilliard alumnus Bradley Whitford

clean

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
- Leonardo da Vinci

strip away

“Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.”
- Michelangelo

a place to stay in Washington

ttp://www.theinnatlittlewashington.com

maxim

“In the long run, we're all dead.”
- John Maynard Keynes

So you want to get a PhD