Ryden Mark Quotes

I find it so much easier to be creatively free at night. Daytime is for sleeping. Nighttime is the best time for making art. The later at night it gets the further into another world you go.

There is a very dark and painful side to life, but that is natural. People in our culture think they should never be unhappy. They think that being unhappy is unnatural. They try to make it go away. They take pills or they go to therapy to "fix" themselves. They blame themselves or others for their suffering. We need to understand that sadness is as much a part of life as joy. It would be easy just to get bitter and cold while focusing on the dark side, but there is also an amazing, wonderful side of life. If you look for it, there is true magic all around us. Maybe that sounds trite to the hardened, self-protective modern ego, but there is magiv in this miraculous life. If you open yourself up, you do make yourself vulnerable to pain but the deeper the pain you experience, the deeper joy you have.

We buried the little chipmunk in Greta’s backyard and marked the place with a stone. I said a prayer over its grave. I don’t know if there is a chipmunk heaven, or for that matter, even an animal heaven, but I sure hope there is. Better still, I’d like all animals to go to our heaven. It would make the place a lot more interesting than I usually picture it.