You can't escape the past in Paris, and yet what's so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn't seem to burden.
For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust. Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.
I rarely deal with boredom these days. I used to spend a lot of time saying I was bored until I realized there is always something I could be doing. Whenever I have free time, I love using that time to improve myself in different ways. If you think about it, there are tons of things we still don't know much about.
My philosophy is the balance of remembering the past but not living in it, to know where you are in the moment, to project a little in the future and be ready to change. It's how you experience the grace to enjoy the smell of the pavement after a rain - the little things in life to make you satisfied. I never settle for anything that doesn't give me a modicum of pleasure if not total joy and satisfaction. It's allowed, that's what we're supposed to feel. How can we, from an empty cup, offer a stranger a drink of water? You have to fill that cup to the brim!
Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.
Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, Pleasure with pain for leaven, Summer with flowers that fell, Remembrance fallen from heaven, And Madness risen from hell, Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death.