We are all just beginners here, and we shall all die beginners.

Creativity is a crushing chore and a glorious mystery. The work wants to be made, and it wants to be made through you.

In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real.

Sylvia would have taken it seriously- so strong was her devotion to the innate intelligence of form. Those pretty tools like glue and pens, pasting together look-books – for Sylvia it would have been like toy making or arranging jewels. Unfortunately, Sylvia’s flair for design and graphics went unnoticed by the Mademoiselle staff, who had already pigeonholed her as a “writer”.

Of course, we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure).

Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.