“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”

“God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything.”

Bede Griffiths (1906–1993) Benedictine Monk

“There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

“I have a habit to be reborn as a writer. So if I find myself in a crisis that I have never experienced, I can be born, or I can write something, by the power of the habit. Even a soldier or a farmer or a fisherman can be reborn by the power of the habit when he meets the greatest crisis of his life.”

Kenzaburō Ōe (1935) Japanese author

“In my dream, I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows they learned to swim”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

“My stories run up and bite me in the leg — I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

“I have put my arm round her waist, and I am shaken by the sorrow which agitates her chest and throat, and sometimes shakes her rudely, the sorrow which does not belong to me, which belongs to no one, and is like a divinity.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

“My idea of paradise is that period just before the sun rises and I’m at home painting or writing songs and everything is flowing. I pray that the sun won’t rise so I can paint and write for ever. That’s my ideal time.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

“Everything came easy to me in life. I could always shake off difficulties, like water on a duck's wings.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012) Italian neurologist

“These pages are not my confession; they’re my definition. And I feel, as I begin to write it, that I can write it with some semblance of truth.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Education Of the Stoic