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Messiness Quotes

Browse 41 quotes about Messiness.

Messiness Quotes

“Whitman, you once told me, is democracy on the page, messy and imperfect as we are in real life, which gave you hope that we would one day make real life true democracy, ripe blossom, pollen dusting every moment and person, each scampering mote of light. This is why as you lay dying, I read “I Hear America Singing” and knew you heard every word and could feel my hand on yours though you were already moving toward other miracles than this life. A sunflower followed your motion and a yellow dog stood guard. You, who lived the notion that the sun belongs to each and every one, beggars, dreamers, kings, all. You who believed banks could have hearts, for god’s sake! You have left it to us, messy and imperfect as we are and will be, to keep to the work side by side and as long as it takes, all the while singing of miracles just as Whitman and you taught us to do.”

DeathPoetryHopeDemocracyDyingPoemCapitalismMessinessWalt WhitmanI Hear America Singing
Author:Rosemary Catacalos
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“There are stories about perfection, but those stories are lies. No one ever made the world better by being perfect. There is only mess in humans, and sometimes that mess turns to magic, and sometimes that magic turns to kindness, to salvation, to survival.”

PeopleHumansKindnessMagicSurvivalPerfectionSalvationImperfectionMessiness
Book:A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers
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“It shall be an offence for any man, either a husband or other person of the male sex, married or otherwise, being over the age of twelve years, to throw any item of clothing having been worn by the said person for whatever length of time, upon the floor of any bathroom or any room adjacent to and connected to a bathroom, without good cause.”

MenBoysLaundryAlexander Mccall SmithMessiness
Book:The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine
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“That was when I began to learn how to do all the things I had been taught not to do. I learned over the years to accept more and more of myself,. The doctor and theologian Gerald May said self-acceptance is freedom. I learned to waste a lot more time, which is the opposite of the fourth thing you're told after you're born: Don't waste time. (It comes right after Go clean your room.) The fifth rule is Don't waste paper, but in order to become who I was meant to be, I learned I had to waste more paper, to practice messes, false starts and blunders: these are necessary stops on the route of creativity and emotional growth. To make up for all my papery mistakes, I sent money to the Sierra Club. I had to accept that contrary to my parents' terror of looking bad, almost everybody worth his or her salt was a mess and had been an overly sensitive child. Almost everyone had at one time or another been exposed to the world as being flawed, and human. And that it was good, for the development of character and empathy, for the growth of the spirit. Periods in the wilderness or desert were not lost time. You might find life, wildflowers, fossils, sources of water.”

HumanitySelf AcceptanceMessiness
Book:Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott
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“The programmer, who needs clarity, who must talk all day to a machine that demands declarations, hunkers down into a low-grade annoyance. It is here that the stereotype of the programmer, sitting in a dim room, growling from behind Coke cans, has its origins. The disorder of the desk, the floor; the yellow Post-It notes everywhere; the whiteboards covered with scrawl: all this is the outward manifestation of the messiness of human thought. The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.”

NeedsHumansRoomsBehindsDemandLowsSittingProgramMachinesNotesClarityPostsManifestationGradesCoveredDisorderYellowDesksStereotypeDeclarationProgrammersCokeAnnoyanceHuman ThoughtMessinessGrowlingPost It Notes
Author:Ellen Ullman
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“I always say that my artist statement is to not be afraid to talk about the messiness - the unpleasant feelings and happenings around my life. I also try to convey what it feels like and sounds like and smells like and looks like inside of my particular skin, to move through the world as a black American woman in her mid-twenties. Language from songs and TV shows feel integral because it helps to create the environment and describe the full picture.”

WorldFeelsTryingLooksHelpingShowsFeelingsMovingArtistSongLanguageSoundBlackEnvironmentParticularTvsHappeningsSkinsTwentiesSmellStatementsTv ShowsAmerican WomanMessiness
Author:Morgan Parker
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“Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die. True courage is about facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right. ~Amber”

ThinkingMeanLongEndsHardDiesCan DoTalkingPathBreathsEndureBoredomGloriousScreamInconvenienceRight PathTrue CourageMessinessFacing DeathFacing Life
Author:Robin Hobb
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“You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily living for the tranquility of stillness and peacefulness. This of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests development and short-circuits the cultivation of wisdom.”

LifeMightWould BeCoursesStrongDevelopmentMindfulnessDelusionAttachmentStillnessTranquilityTemptedCircuitsCultivationPeacefulnessDaily LivingMessinessShort Circuit
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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“Photography is inherently an analytic discipline. Where a painter starts with a blank canvas and builds a picture, a photographer starts with the messiness of the world and selects a picture. A photographer standing before houses and streets and people and trees and artifacts of a culture imposes an order on the scene - simplifies the jumble by giving it structure. He or she imposes this order by choosing a vantage point, choosing a frame, choosing a moment of exposure, and by selecting a plane of focus.”

PeopleWorldGivingArtMomentsOrderCultureHouseCreativityFocusTreeStreetsDisciplineScenePhotographyStandingStructurePhotographerPainterPlanesBlankCanvasExposureSimplifyAnalyticsArtifactsVantage PointBlank CanvasMessiness
Book:The nature of photographs
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“I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitized and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf… Perhaps future generations will recoil with similar horror at the messiness, unpredictability and immediate personal involvement of a three-dimensional, real-time interaction.”

WayGivingMayHas BeensRealThreeAnimalWonderGenerationsEasierHorrorConversationKillingScreensDialogueMeatInteractionReplacedShelvesPackagesInvolvementFuture GenerationConvenienceSupermarketsUnpredictabilityRecoilMessinessReal Conversation
Author:Susan Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield
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