J.L. Carr Quotes

It is wonderful to feel the grandness of Canada in the raw, not because she is Canada but because she's something sublime that you were born into, some great rugged power that you are a part of.

Art is art, nature is nature, you cannot improve upon it.... Pictures should be inspired by nature, but made in the soul of the artist. It is the soul of the individual that counts.

The function off the historian is neither to love the past nor to emancipate himself from the past, but to master and understand it as the key to the understanding of the present.

Do not try to do extraordinary things but do ordinary things with intensity.

The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context

Say what you want about the deaf.

You must be absolutely honest and true in the depicting of a totem for meaning is attached to every line. You must be most particular about detail and proportion.

Life has a much bigger plan for you. Happiness is part of that plan. Health is part of that plan. Stability is part of that plan. Constant struggle is not.

It is wonderful to feel the grandness of Canada in the raw.

I think that one's art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows.

Study the historian before you begin to study the facts.

The tragedy for comedians is there's nothing more they want than to be liked. We desperately seek approval. It's almost like a personality disorder you can do as a job.

Has there ever been anybody, real or fictional, whiter than Betty Crocker?

There is something bigger than fact: the underlying spirit, all it stands for, the mood, the vastness, the wildness.

My girlfriend bought a cook book the other day called 'Cheap and easy vegetarian cooking'. Which is perfect for her, because not only is she vegetarian.

I love first times. I want my whole life to be composed of them. Life is only interesting if life is wide.

You come into the world alone and you go out of the world alone yet it seems to me you are more alone while living than even going and coming.

To be reborn, you have to die first.

Every human being must find his own way to cope with severe loss, and the only job of a true friend is to facilitate whatever method he chooses.

The liveness in me just loves to feel the liveness in growing things, in grass and rain and leaves and flowers and sun and feathers and furs and earth and sand and moss.

So still were the big woods where I sat, sound might not yet have been born.

The songs of our ancestors are also the songs of our children

Change is certain. Progress is not.

British scientists have demonstrated that cigarettes can harm your children. Fair enough. Use an ashtray!

I am always watching for fear of getting feeble and passé in my work. I don't want to trickle out. I want to pour till the pail is empty, the last bit going out in a gush, not in drops.

As the woods are the same, the trees standing in their places, the rocks and the earth... they are always different too, as lights and shadows and seasons and moods pass through them.

It is the greatest truth of our age: Information is not knowledge.

Art being so much greater than ourselves, it will not give up once it has taken hold.

The only time you can change someone is when they are in diapers.

Make space in your life, space for health and happiness

Adversity is a call to action, and your freedom lies in taking the first step. Don't worry about the entire staircase, just take one step, and then tomorrow take another.

There's no need to wait for the bad things and bullshit to be over. Change now. Love now. Live now. Don't wait for people to give you permission to live, because they won't.

Good historians, I suspect, whether they think about it or not, have the future in their bones. Besides the question: Why? the historian also asks the question: Whither?

What distinguishes the historian from the collector of historical facts is generalization.

It's all the unwordable things one wants to write about, just as it's all the unformable things one wants to paint - essence.

A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day. She said, 'Can you spare a few minutes for cancer research?' I said, 'All right, but we won't get much done.'

It’s not about finding your voice, it’s about giving yourself permission to use your voice.

Find your bliss and your joy, know that you are a white light disco ball with no ceilings and no limitations.

Oh, the glory of growth, silent, mighty, persistent, inevitable! To awaken, to open up like a flower to the light of a fuller consciousness!

I said to my girlfriend, you shouldn't eat before you swim. She said, "why not"? I said, you look fat.

I'm not being condescending, I'm too busy thinking about far more important things you wouldn't understand.

I saw that show, 50 Things To Do Before You Die. I would have thought the obvious one was 'Shout For Help'.

Your self-worth has nothing to do with your craft or calling, and everything to do with how you treat yourself.

Direct your mind where you want it to travel instead of always going for the ride.

If only Africa had more mosquito nets then every year we could save millions of mosquitoes from dying needlessly of aids.

People with Tourettes.....What makes them tick?

When you eat a lot of spicy food, you can lose your taste. When I was in India last summer, I was listening to a lot of Michael Bolton.

Make peace with guilt. Guilt is a poisonous illusion. Many languages don't even have a word for guilt.

What if your purpose is to take impeccable care of yourself so that you have the energy and joy to serve others?

TV's not the same buzz. If someone tells you three million people watched the show last week, that's good but, when you walk out in front of 1,000, you think, 'Oh my God, this had better be good'.