That's what America's all about, man, if it's about anything. You can choose your own name. — Michael Ventura America Copy Share Image
Stop tolerating in your leaders what you would not tolerate in your friends. — Michael Ventura Drug Copy Share Image
If your vulnerability has become hardened, it's very, very difficult to be creative. — Michael Ventura Adversity Copy Share Image
Leave people alone when they tell you to leave them alone. If they mean it, they need it. — Michael Ventura Ifs Copy Share Image
The people you have to lie to, own you. The things you have to lie about, own you. — Michael Ventura Lying Copy Share Image
“In joy, our choices may appear to be few, but one's responses are anything but confined, they're inspired, expanded.” — Michael Ventura Choice Copy Share Image
All paths cause pain, so to chose the safe over the audacious will not give you less pain, only less beauty. — Michael Ventura Audacious Copy Share Image
I require and enforce as non-interrupted a state of living as you can get in America right now without going off to… — Michael Ventura America Copy Share Image
I never get my creativity flowing. I'm a pro, this is how I earn my living. If it don't flow, I don't… — Michael Ventura Creativity Copy Share Image
My employer uses twenty-six years of my life for every year I get to keep. And what do I get in return… — Michael Ventura Employers Copy Share Image
An artist doesn't depend upon inspiration or have to have it. An artist doesn't depend on mood, certainly not if you're earning… — Michael Ventura Art Copy Share Image
The world of psychology and the world of normal life tends to look down on obsession. It's not good for you, and… — Michael Ventura Art Copy Share Image
People are judged continuously everywhere on the most intimate level by the prices on their head. Most of them accept the judgment.… — Michael Ventura Accepting Copy Share Image
“He became a surgeon because he was afraid of knives. He got married because he was afraid of women. He had a… — Michael Ventura Children Copy Share Image
We have to be realistic about the brutal demands a money culture puts on the psyche, and there is a great cost… — Michael Ventura Brutal Copy Share Image
When the people clamor to be shielded from reality, when they praise their government for keeping things from them, when they choose… — Michael Ventura Begging Copy Share Image
These things - the degree of vulnerability, the degree of skill, the degree of the longing to give - are influx all… — Michael Ventura Art Copy Share Image
I always thought Cyrano De Bergerac was a coward. He could fight a hundred swordsmen, but he was afraid of his nose,… — Michael Ventura Artist Copy Share Image
Good is not the opposite of evil, joy is the opposite of evil. — Michael Ventura Evil Copy Share Image
Be careful how you choose your enemy, for you will come to resemble him. The moment you adapt your enemy's methods your… — Michael Ventura Be careful Copy Share Image
Most of us aren't very graceful about not having our needs met, when and how we want them met. — Michael Ventura Having Copy Share Image
To be physically astute and psychologically tended, yet morally insulated and conceptually blind--is to be crazy, not healthy. — Michael Ventura Astute Copy Share Image
It may be that it is not given to us to know when we are angels. We may only be given to… — Michael Ventura Angel Copy Share Image
My spirit life is also the medium in which I live. It's not something that comes and goes. Without one the other… — Michael Ventura Comes and goes Copy Share Image
There are writers I know and respect who are very good about what's outside, and not too hot about what's inside. — Michael Ventura Hot Copy Share Image
If I had the money and the drinking capacity, I'd probably live at a roulette table and let my life go to… — Michael Ventura Capacity Copy Share Image
Creativity is the vulnerability to spiritual and physical sensation, and to experience, combined with and acting upon a certain level of skill,… — Michael Ventura Acting Copy Share Image
I try to write into the heart of experience. Then, through the experience of the writing, that heart reveals itself to me.… — Michael Ventura Art Copy Share Image
Creativity is an innate function in a human being, as we see in tribal peoples, who spent their considerable leisure time making… — Michael Ventura Art Copy Share Image
My spirit life very much depends on my work. My work very much depends on my spirit life. And I pray every… — Michael Ventura Believe Copy Share Image
“They think I may be dangerous, and I am, but not in the way they fear. I have tasted of Paradise. Not… — Michael Ventura Dangerous Copy Share Image
“It's as absurd to expect a life to have meaning, in contrast to the vastness of the Universe, as it is absurd… — Michael Ventura Life Copy Share Image
Courage can't make you an artist, but without that courage, you won't remain one for long. First is the courage to be… — Michael Ventura Art Copy Share Image
We have a culture that is indirect in the extreme, where by the time you're five years old, you've watched tons of… — Michael Ventura Age Copy Share Image
The value of having an inner map of the world as it is (not as it's broadcast) is this: it allows you… — Michael Ventura Breathing Copy Share Image
