“Forgive people when they laugh at your dreams, I assure you, In a matter of time, they soon will start dreaming”

“To world enough and time.”

“I sometimes have moments of such despair, such despair … Because in those moments I start to think that I will never be capable of beginning to live a real life; because I have already begun to think that I have lost all sense of proportion, all sense of the real and the actual; because, what is more, I have cursed myself; because my nights of fantasy are followed by hideous moments of sobering! And all the time one hears the human crowd swirling and thundering around one in the whirlwind of life, one hears, one sees how people live—that they live in reality, that for them life is not something forbidden, that their lives are not scattered for the winds like dreams or visions but are forever in the process of renewal, forever young, and that no two moments in them are ever the same; while how dreary and monotonous to the point of being vulgar is timorous fantasy, the slave of shadow, of the idea…”

“We both wondered whether these contradictions that one can’t avoid if one begins to think of time and space may not really be proofs that the whole of life is a dream, and the moon and stars bits of nightmare.”

“And still the brain continues to yearn, continues to burn, foolishly, with desire. My old man’s brain is mocked by a body that still longs to stretch in the sun and form a beautiful shape in someone else’s gaze, to lie under a blue sky and dream of helpless, selfless love, to behold itself, illuminated, in the golden light of another’s eyes.”

“The finished clock is resplendent. At first glance it is simply a clock, a rather large black clock with a white face and a silver pendulum. Well crafted, obviously, with intricately carved woodwork edges and a perfectly painted face, but just a clock.But that is before it is wound. Before it begins to tick, the pendulum swinging steadily and evenly. Then, then it becomes something else.The changes are slow. First, the color changes in the face, shifts from white to grey, and then there are clouds that float across it, disappearing when they reach the opposite side. Meanwhile, bits of the body of the clock expand and contract, like pieces of a puzzle. As though the clock is falling apart, slowly and gracefully.All of this takes hours.The face of the clock becomes a darker grey, and then black, with twinkling stars where numbers had been previously. The body of the clock, which has been methodically turning itself inside out and expanding, is now entirely subtle shades of white and grey. And it is not just pieces, it is figures and objects, perfectly carved flowers and planets and tiny books with actual paper pages that turn. There is a silver dragon that curls around part of the now visible clockwork, a tiny princess in a carved tower who paces in distress, awaiting an absent prince. Teapots that pour into teacups and minuscule curls of steam that rise from them as the seconds tick. Wrapped presents open. Small cats chase small dogs. An entire game of chess is played.At the center, where a cuckoo bird would live in a more traditional timepiece, is the juggler. Dress in harlequin style with a grey mask, he juggles shiny silver balls that correspond to each hour. As the clock chimes, another ball joins the rest until at midnight he juggles twelve balls in a complex pattern.After midnight, the clock begins once more to fold in upon itself. The face lightens and the cloud returns. The number of juggled balls decreases until the juggler himself vanishes.By noon it is a clock again, and no longer a dream.”

“The past is a ghost, the future a dream and all we ever have is now.”

“A bad dream can ruin your night, but a dream not chased can ruin your life.”

“That’s one hell of a beautiful dream, Z. I hope I’m around to see it realized.”

“Do not pretend to know the future. Many say it is already written. The dreamers know otherwise.”

“Dreams give life meaning. Dream on.”

“The time you spend dreaming of a better life is the time that could be spent creating a better life.”

“There is a purpose for your presence here on Earth. There is a reason for you to be here. You are here to add something to the world that has never been here before. Your existence has never blessed this world before and it will never bless this world again. Find your reason to be here and live that reason. Create what you were meant to create. Dream what you were meant to dream. Live as you were meant to live. Your existence has a reason and your sole purpose in life is to find that reason.”

“Everything that exists in the world today started as a dream.”

“Failure is a possibility anywhere so why not live your passion?”