There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever.
You know, real life doesn’t just suddenly resolve itself. You have to keep working at it. Democracy, marriage, friendship. You can’t just say, ‘She’s my best friend.’ That’s not a given, it’s a process.
Joseph Campbell said the privilege of a lifetime is being yourself. That’s his feeling. And I guess it’s mine too.
I’m optimistic about people and about the planet and about nature. I think it’s resilient, like people are.
My job as an artist, as I see it, is to understand and in some cases to take on various ways of thinking about people and the world that are different from my own, sometimes radically different.
If I can get a day to myself, I won’t answer the phone, I’ll read or go for a walk. Simple, basic things. People think there’s always time to do that but there isn’t. Life is short.
As far as money goes, there’s a saying in Denmark: ‘Your last suit doesn’t have any pockets.’ You can’t take it with you. You can make all the money you want, but who cares?
Be kind. It’s worthwhile to make an effort to learn about other people and figure out what you might have in common with them. If you allow yourself to be somewhat curious – and if you get into the habit of doing that – it’s the first step to being open minded and realizing that your points of view aren’t totally opposite.
I have a roof over my head. I had a breakfast, and a lot of people in the world can’t say that. I’m not going to complain about being interviewed.
As [John] Tolkien himself said, the story [Lord of the Ring ] is not allegorical. He said so when people tried to make analogies to World War II and the fight against Hitler and his fascist coalition.
It doesn’t take that many years for a kid to realise that they’re going to die. It’s always there in the back of their mind the rest of their lives.
Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it. Indeed, the shorter it is. People lose their capacity to walk, run, travel, think, and experience life. I realise how important it is to use the time I have.
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