Letter to his brother Jeff from Guadalcanal (28 January 1943); p. 28
To Reach Eternity (1989)
Context: I'm going to ask you something. If I do get killed, and I honestly don't see how I can help it, I want you to write that book we were thinking about when I enlisted. If I get it, it's a cinch I won't be able to do it, and it would make me feel a whole lot better to know that if not my name and hand, at least, the thot of me would be passed on and not forgotten entirely. You know, sort of put into the book the promise that I had and the things I might have written so at least the knowledge of talent wasted won't be lost... If I get it, no one will ever know to what heights I might have gone as a writer. Maybe if you wrote about the promise that was there, all wouldn't be lost.
“Undoubtedly I had lost time in balking at scales, arpeggios. […] There is an advantage in establishing the top story of one's constructions first: One has seen the heights; one knows what one is building for and what must be sustained.”
Violinist Yehudi Menuhin
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Yehudi Menuhin 41
American violinist and conductor 1916–1999Related quotes

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

“One must be of one's time and paint what one sees.”
As quoted in Encyclopedia of Artists (2000) by William Vaughan and Christopher Ackroyd, p. 28
1876 - 1883

Source: 1970s, The Awakening of Intelligence (1973), p. 337
Context: How can one be free of the images that one has? First of all, I must find out how these images come into being, what is the mechanism that creates them. You can see that at the moment of actual relationship, that is, when you are talking, when there are arguments, when there are insults and brutality, if you are not completely attentive at that moment, then the mechanism of building an image starts. That is, when the mind is not completely attentive at the moment of action, then the mechanism of building images is set in motion. When you say something to me which I do not like — or which I like — if at that moment I am not completely attentive, then the mechanism starts. If I am attentive, aware, then there is no building of images.

On discussing his past escapades with his girlfriend.
Rolling Stone interview (2003)

“I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.”

As quoted in Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company (2004) by Owen W. Linzmayer
2000s
Variant: I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year… It's very character-building.

“[W]hen one plays for top prizes one must be prepared to pay top stakes.”
The Roman Empire (1967), p. 125
General sources