We are always looking for the book it is necessary to read next.
The greater number of landscapes I explored, the more it seemed that they had traits in common and that the essence of each was not its uniqueness but its similarity to others.
Landscape is history made visible.
It is place, permanent position in both the social and topographical sense, that gives us our identity.
Ruins provide the incentive for restoration, and for a return to origins. There has to be an interim of death or rejection before there can be renewal and reform.
The bicycle had, and still has, a humane, almost classical moderation in the kind of pleasure it offers. It is the kind of machine that a Hellenistic Greek might have invented and ridden. It does no violence to our normal reactions: It does not pretend to free us from our normal environment.
When you boil it down, it's all a visual expression. In a sense we are all storytellers through what we wear, who we want to be, how we want people to perceive us. Life, people and the stories they consciously or unconsciously tell inspire me everyday.
Looking at the elementary schoolers in their colorful T-shirts from various day camps, Percy felt a twinge of sadness. He should be at Camp Half-Blood right now, settling into his cabin for the summer, teaching sword-fighting lessons in the arena, playing pranks on the other counselors. These kids had no idea just how crazy a summer camp could be.
There is a melancholy which accompanies all enthusiasm.
Appreciation of works of art requires organized effort and systematic study. Art appreciation can no more be absorbed by aimless wandering in galleries than can surgery be learned by casual visits to a hospital.