Mark Bradford Quotes

The most important imperative to be questioned is the one that tells you to go the the art supply store to be a painter.

To me they were all equal, and without people a business was just a building.

I am always in a state of Eunoia. And I'm not in it just for the vowels.

As he tumbled from the ship, he managed, through remarkable presence of mind, to seize hold of a rope. It was one of the topsail halyards that, good news for John, was trailing in the rolling seawater. Used to raise the upper sail, the trailing rope now provided the only chance of escaping catastrophe. It should have been carefully tied to a cleat, but it was not secured. And due to that piece of untidy seamanship, John Howland survived. In the desperate lunge that ended with him grabbing the twisted, slippery rope, he saved himself from drowning. He clung on even though he found himself, in Bradford’s words again, “sundry fathoms under water.” Back on the Mayflower there was a hurrying of men to the side of the pitching vessel. Many hands took up the shipward end of the rope and hauled him back towards safety. As the exhausted and drenched man was pulled from the waves and up against the rough timbers of the rolling Mayflower, someone grabbed a boat hook and, by catching it in his coat, helped pull him back on board.6 It had been a close call. Had the trailing rope not been there, had Howland failed to catch it, he would have been swept away by the white-crested waves and lost. As it was, he lived. It was an almost unbelievable event; an astonishing cheating of death. All of the godly who witnessed it or who heard of it would have felt convinced that it was possible only by the providential hand of God. Jonah-like, John Howland had been both thrown into the stormy deep and also rescued from it (though without the intervention of a great fish) by the will of God. His, clearly, was a life marked out for future importance in the story of the colony about to be founded. Heads would have nodded as word of the event spread among the godly passengers on the ship. Here, clearly, was a man in the hand of God. A man blessed and marked out by the action of the Almighty. The crew, though, probably winked and swore as they considered the naivete of a landsman taking the air in such a storm. For them it was just the latest evidence that these passengers were doomed to disaster; they lacked the edge and awareness needed to survive what lay ahead of them. And those less godly among the passengers might also have been less willing than some of those around them to assume the certainty of providence acting in the events. Which of these would be proved right—faithful Saints, profane seamen, uncertain Strangers—only time would tell. But one thing was certain: the name of John Howland was on everyone’s lips. And he himself was being written into history.

I want you to know that I love you. What I used to feel for Sylvie was a young man’s love. What I feel for you is an older, and hopefully wiser, man’s love. I acknowledge that it’s a lot, to ask you to date a man with a past like mine. I’ve had a child out of wedlock. I’ve been married before. I’ve been marked by tragedy. I come with two little girls who will look to any future wife of mine to be their mother. I’ll never move to New York. I can’t. I have to stay here because it’s my responsibility to run the company that carries my family name. I’m well aware that you could date someone without as many faults. It would probably be easier on you to date someone who won’t worry about you as much as I will. You’ll have to make sacrifices to be with me, Kathleen. I’m sorry for that. But if you choose to be with me anyway, I promise to love you with everything I have for as long as God lets me. You’re a gift I never expected. You’ve changed my life and made me believe in a future I couldn’t even imagine until I met you. I’ll

Everyone finds the time to do the things the want to do.

Everything is more interesting and complex in my mind.

Dr. Keeney’s work marks the beginning of an awakening of the universal life force that is accessible to everyone. I have personally experienced his method of moving the life force in my own body—circulating it up and down my spine, passing it through my fingertips, and feeling it tingling the tips of my toes. It is time for each of us to become acquainted with this energizing force.” DR. ROBERT FULFORD, AUTHOR OF DR. FULFORD’S TOUCH OF LIFE: ALIGNING BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT TO HONOR THE HEALER WITHIN

The fall of 1623 marked the end of Plymouth’s debilitating food shortages. For the last two planting seasons, the Pilgrims had grown crops communally—the approach first used at Jamestown and other English settlements. But as the disastrous harvest of the previous fall had shown, something drastic needed to be done to increase the annual yield. In April, Bradford had decided that each household should be assigned its own plot to cultivate, with the understanding that each family kept whatever it grew. The change in attitude was stunning. Families were now willing to work much harder than they had ever worked before. In previous years, the men had tended the fields while the women tended the children at home. “The women now went willingly into the field,” Bradford wrote, “and took their little ones with them to set corn.” The Pilgrims had stumbled on the power of capitalism.