And yet, we know how fatal the pursuit of liveliness may be: it may result in ... tiresome acrobatics. ... Flashy effects distract the mind. They destroy their persuasiveness; you would not believe a man was very intent on ploughing… — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share Image
All life worth living is difficult, nobody promised us happiness; it is not a commodity you have earned, or shall ever earn. It is a by-product of brave living, and it never comes in the form we expect, or at… — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share Image
There seems to be a kind of order in the universe…in the movement of the stars and the turning of the Earth and the… — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share Image
The human heart is not yet so corroded that it can read off the extinction of these two men without a shock to the… — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share Image
Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things,… — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share Image
But the great leveler, Death: not even the gods can defend a man, not even one they love, that day when fate takes hold… — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share Image
I started out with nothing in the world but a kind of passion, a driving desire. I don't know where it came from, and I don't know why - or why I have been so stubborn about it that nothing could deflect me. But this thing between me and my writing is the strongest bond I have ever had -… — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share
I am in Paris. Yes ma'am , I made it back. I came up from Berlin, stopped here ten days, fought a losing battle against my deepest inclinations, pulled myself out by the hair and went to Madrid...Madrid is a lovely enchanting city, and there was almost ready for me a kind of penthouse full of sunlight, a roof garden,… — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share
Your mind outwears all sorts of things you may set your heart upon; you can enjoy it when all other things are taken away. — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share Image
The arts do live continuously, and they live literally by faith; their names and their shapes and their uses and their basic meanings survive unchanged in all that matters through times of interruption, diminishment, neglect; they outlive governments and creeds and the societies, even the very civilization that produced them. They cannot be destroyed altogether because they represent the substance… — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share
The very thing about people that makes the human race interesting is also the thing that makes it so hard to get anything done… — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share Image
