Vera Nazarian Quotes

One of the strangest things is the act of creation.
You are faced with a blank slate - a page, a canvas, a block of stone or wood, a silent musical instrument.
You then look inside yourself. You pull and tug and squeeze and fish around for slippery raw shapeless things that swim like fish made of cloud vapor and fill you with living clamor. You latch onto something. And you bring it forth out of your head like Zeus giving birth to Athena.
And as it comes out, it takes shape and tangible form.
It drips on the canvas, and slides through your pen, it springs forth and resonates into the musical strings, and slips along the edge of the sculptor's tool onto the surface of the wood or marble.
You have given it cohesion. You have brought forth something ordered and beautiful out of nothing.
You have glimpsed the divine.

Meditation is a mysterious method of self-restoration.
It involves "shutting" out the outside world, and by that means sensing the universal "presence" which is, incidentally, absolute perfect peace.
It is basically an existential "time-out" - a way to "come up for a breath of air" out of the noisy clutter of the world.
But don't be afraid, there is nothing arcane or supernatural or creepy about the notion of taking a time-out. Ball players do it. Kids do it, when prompted by their parents. Heck, even your computer does it (and sometimes not when you want it to).
So, why not you?
A meditation can be as simple as taking a series of easy breaths, and slowly, gently counting to ten in your mind.

People who are too optimistic seem annoying. This is an unfortunate misinterpretation of what an optimist really is.
An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that's out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist.
An idealist focuses only on the best aspects of all things (sometimes in detriment to reality); an optimist strives to find an effective solution. A pessimist sees limited or no choices in dark times; an optimist makes choices.
When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach, while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie.
Annoying? Yes. But, oh-so tasty!

For as long as there's anyone to ask 'Why?' the answer will always be, 'Why not?

Ice is most welcome in a cold drink on a hot day.
But in the heart of winter, you want a warm hot mug with your favorite soothing brew to keep the chill away.
When you don't have anything warm at hand, even a memory can be a small substitute.
Remember a searing look of intimate eyes.
Receive the inner fire.

A wise person is like a smoothly polished rock: it takes time to become either.

Come, fly with me!" cried the goddess, as she sped ahead of them, her extremities flaming with a comet tail of sparks in the supernatural wind. Her bubbling voice again echoed, her laughter bounced in the crystalline void, and she flew onward, unto eternity....

"Stop!" cried Elasirr. "Come back with us to the true world, O Tilirreh!"

At which the orange one laughed, throwing her head back, saying, "Oh, but don't you know this is the one true world? It is but yours that is a pale specter, that is the dying place of dwindling truth?"

"Then come back with us, lady," whispered Ranhé, "and restore the truth as it once was.

Who says you cannot hold the moon in your hand?
Tonight when the stars come out and the moon rises in the velvet sky, look outside your window, then raise your hand and position your fingers around the disk of light.
There you go . . . That was easy!

If Music is a Place
then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple.

Since the dawn of existence, you mortals have feared dying, feared the unknown and the pain of it, and yet, pain is a part of life, not death. And I - I am the first moment after pain ceases," he [Death] pronounced. "It is life that fights and struggles and rages; life, that tears at you in its last agonizing throes to hold on, even if but for one futile instant longer ... Whereas I, I come softly when it is all done. Pain and death are an ordered sequence, not a parallel pair. So easy to confuse the correlations, not realizing that one does not bring the other.

Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind. Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exultation. Suddenly, you know you are alive.

Was it you or I who stumbled first? It does not matter. The one of us who finds the strength to get up first, must help the other.

Why does every road eventually narrow into a point at the horizon? Because that's where the point lies.

But her soft lips were upon his, drinking his living breath, and he was now gasping in divine madness, pressing his mouth over hers like a drowning man, breathing through her. . . . "That

Common sense was not as common as the Deity might wish for. Indeed, not even the angelic choirs were entirely free of a certain vice known as silliness.

To be alone with yourself is to be alone. To be in the company of others is to be alone together.
The only time you are not alone is when you forget yourself and reach out in love
the lines of self blur, and just for a wild, flickering moment you experience the miracle of other.
And now you know the secret.

It does not take a great supernatural heroine or magical hero to save the world.
We all save it every day, and we all destroy it
in our own small ways
by every choice we make and every tiniest action resulting from that choice.
The next time you feel useless and impotent, remember what you are in fact doing in this very moment. And then observe your tiny, seemingly meaningless acts and choices coalesce and cascade together into a powerful positive whole.
The world
if it could
will thank you for it.
And if it does not ... well, a true heroine or hero does not require it.

Because that's all a new language is - a slightly different way of thinking and looking at the same world. It's like putting on multi-colored sunglasses. It enriches your thought processes and blows up your imagination like a balloon. And it gives you the mysterious power to express yourself to others who normally might not be able to understand you.

To every rule there is an exception - and an idiot ready to demonstrate it. Don't be the one!

The heartland lies where the heart longs to be. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to find the true place to plant it.

Responsibility and Trust
these two are like Yin and Yang, together perfectly complete, and each one requiring the presence of the other.
The next time you mistrust someone, consider this
does that person feel responsible for you in any way? If the answer is yes, then go ahead and trust them. Very likely, they are looking out for your best interest.

When tough times come, it is particularly important to offset them with much gentle softness. Be a pillow.

What is it about wearing a tuxedo or that little black dress, that makes us feel confident, beautiful, splendid, even invincible?
We put on formal wear and suddenly we become extraordinary.
On the days when you feel low and invisible, why not try this on for size: imagine you are wearing a fantastic tailored tuxedo or a stunning formal gown.
And then proceed with your day.

The Empress said, her own breath coming in gasps, lips against her daughter's cold forehead and soft hair - her hair at least was still the same, soft, delicate, sweet cobwebs. . . .

The Gingerbread House has four walls, a roof, a door, a window, and a chimney. It is decorated with many sweet culinary delights on the outside.
But on the inside there is nothing - only the bare gingerbread walls.
It is not a real house - not until you decide to add a Gingerbread Room.
That's when the stories can move in.
They will stay in residence for as long as you abstain from taking the first gingerbread bite.

I've just been bitten on the neck by a vampire ... mosquito. Does that mean that when the night comes I will rise and be annoying?

There is only Love
and Stories. All else is but a shadow dream.

SUN, MOON, AND STARRY SKY
Early summer evenings, when the first stars come out, the warm glow of sunset still stains the rim of the western sky.
Sometimes, the moon is also visible, a pale white slice, while the sun tarries.
Just think
all the celestial lights are present at the same time!
These are moments of wonder
see them and remember.

The pyramid shape is said to hold many secrets and amazing properties. One of them is a sense of wonder.

Worry is the secret weapon perpetrated upon us by the dark forces of the world that lurk in the shape of fear, uncertainty, confusion, and loss.
We, on the other hand, have our own secret weapon against these incorporeal fiends.
It is laughter.

Don't bother to argue anything on the Internet. And I mean, ANYTHING ... The most innocuous, innocent, harmless, basic topics will be misconstrued by people trying to deconstruct things down to the sub-atomic level and entirely miss the point ... Seriously. Keep peeling the onion and you get no onion.

Luck is not as random as you think.
Before that lottery ticket won the jackpot, someone had to buy it.

Money is like fire. It is only good when there's just the right amount of it, when it's properly contained and under your control.

What is blood but the wine of life?

We are all glorified motion sensors.
Some things only become visible to us when they undergo change.
We take for granted all the constant, fixed things, and eventually stop paying any attention to them. At the same time we observe and obsess over small, fast-moving, ephemeral things of little value.
The trick to rediscovering constants is to stop and focus on the greater panorama around us. While everything else flits abut, the important things remain in place.
Their stillness appears as reverse motion to our perspective, as relativity resets our motion sensors. It reboots us, allowing us once again to perceive.
And now that we do see, suddenly we realize that those still things are not so motionless after all. They are simply gliding with slow individualistic grace against the backdrop of the immense universe.
And it takes a more sensitive motion instrument to track this.

One true king knew when to step aside and give up the reins of power - to remove his crown and relinquish his kingdom - all for the sake of glimpsing, just once in a lifetime, the face of a holy child.
He was the Fourth to follow the Star.
His gift was a secret.
The rest of his journey is unknown.

Withhold a smile only when the smile can hurt someone. Otherwise, let it bloom forth in a riot.

Incidentally, the world is magical.
Magic is simply what's off our human scale ... at the moment.

Whenever you go on a trip to visit foreign lands or distant places, remember that they are all someone's home and backyard.

It is a peculiar monthly Affliction inducing them [the men of Regency England] to take on various unnatural shapes - neither quite demon, nor proper beast - and in those shapes to roam the land; to hunt, murder, dismember, gorge on blood, consume haggis and kidney pie, gamble away their familial fortune, marry below their station (and below their statue, when the lady is an Amazon), vote Whig, perform sudden and voluntary manual labor, cultivate orchids, collect butterflies and Limoges snuff boxes, and perpetrate other such odious evil - unless properly contained.

Some people prefer eating dessert to the main course. These people have never been really hungry.

A boomerang returns back to the person who throws it.
But first, while moving in a circle, it hits its target.
So does gossip.

Unlike a fountain that circulates the same water in an enclosed, perpetually recycling system, a human being circulates thoughts in an unlimited reservoir of self.
Don't limit yourself to being a mere fountain when you contain an ocean.

I tell the story to you now, but in each telling the story itself changes a little, changes direction, and that in turn changes you and me. So be very careful not only in how you repeat it but in how you remember it, goslings. More often than you realize it, the world is shaped by two things
stories told and the memories they leave behind.

Yawns are not the only infectious things out there besides germs.
Giggles can spread from person to person.
So can blushing.
But maybe the most powerful infectious thing is the act of speaking the truth.

What a strange thing it is to wake up to a milk-white overcast June morning! The sun is hidden by a thick cotton blanket of clouds, and the air is vapor-filled and hazy with a concentration of blooming scent.
The world is somnolent and cool, in a temporary reprieve from the normal heat and radiance.
But the sensation of illusion is strong. Because the sun can break through the clouds at any moment ...
What a soft thoughtful time.
In this illusory gloom, like a night-blooming flower, let your imagination bloom in a riot of color.

Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.
Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things.
Their language has been lost.
But not the gestures.

Q: Why do I love thee, O Night?
A: Because you know I will never answer.

A woman is human. She is not better, wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more creative, or more responsible than a man. Likewise, she is never less. Equality is a given. A woman is human.

It is interesting that we call something good a "dream," but being called a "dreamer" is somewhat of a putdown.
Without dreamers, no dream would ever be given reality, and we would live in a very small and shallow world.
If you are a secret dreamer, it's your time to announce yourself.

A long time ago people believed that the world is flat and the moon is made of green cheese. Some still do, to this day. The man on the moon is looking down and laughing.

Every story needs to be worth telling.

Sunrise paints the sky with pinks and the sunset with peaches. Cool to warm. So is the progression from childhood to old age.

You cannot be fair to others without first being fair to yourself.
Know that a well-honed sense of justice is a measure of personal experience, and all experience is a measure of self.
Know that the highest expression of justice is mercy.
Thus, as the supreme judge in your own court, you must have compassion for yourself.
Otherwise, cede your gavel.

One sin seldom mentioned is that of killing time.

I'll tell you a secret.
Old storytellers never die.
They disappear into their own story.

Neither sugar nor salt tastes particularly good by itself. Each is at its best when used to season other things.
Love is the same way.
Use it to "season" people.

Gift giving is a true art.
1. You need to understand the person to whom you intend to give the gift.
2. You need to know what they truly want.
3. You must be able to give it to them.
Anything less is a symptom of varying degrees, on your part, of ignorance, distance, or insult.
But if you cannot afford the right gift, telling the person what you would do if you could, justifies everything - as you present that not-so-perfect substitute.

Sometimes, being true to yourself means changing your mind. Self changes, and you follow.

Here's a funny question:
What is your favorite word?
Think about it - maybe it's a word that makes you absolutely happy, or a word that sounds gloriously beautiful, or a word that evokes awe and wonder. Maybe you are reminded of a great time when you hear it, or maybe it represents your life's dream.
So, what is it? What is your favorite word of all words?
Thought about it yet?
Good.
And now, think why.

Love is made up of three unconditional properties in equal measure: 1. Acceptance 2. Understanding 3. Appreciation Remove any one of the three and the triangle falls apart. Which, by the way, is something highly inadvisable. Think about it - do you really want to live in a world of only two dimensions? So, for the love of a triangle, please keep love whole.

Back in Russia we were dirt-poor. Here in the West we are still poor but have risen above the dirt to tower alongside stalks of grass!

When you reach for the stars, you are reaching for the farthest thing out there. When you reach deep into yourself, it is the same thing, but in the opposite direction. If you reach in both directions, you will have spanned the universe.

Wisdom is nothing more than the marriage of intelligence and compassion.
And, as with all good unions, it takes much experience and time to reach its widest potential.
Have you introduced your intellect to your compassion yet? Be careful; lately, intellect has taken to eating in front of the TV and compassion has taken in too many cats.

Science is an organized pursuit of triviality.
Art is a casual pursuit of significance.
Let's keep it in perspective.

The sand in the hourglass runs from one compartment to the other, marking the passage of moments with something constant and tangible.
If you watch the flowing sand, you might see time itself riding the granules.
Contrary to popular opinion, time is not an old white-haired man, but a laughing child.
And time sings.

Dangling a carrot in front of a donkey - or anyone else for that matter - is not nice, and not fair, unless you eventually plan to give it up to them.

On this material plane, each living being is like a street lantern lamp with a dirty lampshade.

The inside flame burns evenly and is of the same quality as all the rest - hence all of us are equal in the absolute sense, the essence, in the quality of our energy.

However, some of the lamps are "turned down" and having less light in them, burn fainter, (the beings have a less defined individuality, are less in tune with the universal All which is the same as the Will) - hence all of us are unequal in a relative sense, some of us being more aware (human beings), and others being less aware (animal beings), with small wills and small flames.

The lampshades of all are stained with the clutter of the material reality or the physical world.

As a result, it is difficult for the light of each lamp to shine through to the outside and it is also difficult to see what is on the other side of the lampshade that represents the external world (a great thick muddy ocean of fog), and hence to "feel" a connection with the other lantern lamps (other beings).

The lampshade is the physical body immersed in the ocean of the material world, and the limiting host of senses that it comes with.

The dirt of the lampshade results from the cluttering bulk of life experience accumulated without a specific goal or purpose.

The dirtier the lampshade, the less connection each soul has to the rest of the universe - and this includes

Science uses the Red Shift to measure deep cosmic distances. But how to measure deep historic time? How about - the Saffron Shift.

If history itself had a color, it is . . . like wood or bark, or living forest floor.

Assigning hues to time periods, the sum total of history is saffron-brown - but the chromatic arc starts from blinding white (prehistory) to sun-yellow (Ancient Greece), then deepening to pale wood tones (Dark Ages) and finally exploding like an infinite chord into a full brown palette that includes mahoganies, siennas (Middle Ages), oak, sandalwood (the Renaissance), cherry, maple (Age of Reason), and near-black old woods (Industrial Revolution) for which there may not be names.

As time approaches our own, the wood-brown palette fades to a weird glassy colorlessness, goes black-and-white for a brief span as you think of photographs of your grandparents, and then again fades until we get a clear medium that is the color of the world.

And the present moment is perfectly transparent.

It's only as you start looking into the future, that the colors start returning. The glass is turning silvery with a murky haze, and there is blue somewhere in the distance . . .

Have you ever seen the dawn? Not a dawn groggy with lack of sleep or hectic with mindless obligations and you about to rush off on an early adventure or business, but full of deep silence and absolute clarity of perception? A dawning which you truly observe, degree by degree. It is the most amazing moment of birth. And more than anything it can spur you to action. Have a burning day.

Relief is a great feeling.
It's the emotional and physical reward we receive from our bodies upon alleviation of pain, pressure and struggle. A time to bask in the lack of the negative.
And yet, think about it - relief is really the status quo, a negation of the suffering, a nothing in itself. It is the way things were before the pressure and struggle began.
So, is it a step back? A regression?
Or is it an opportunity to regroup, start over, and move in a different direction?
Use your moment of relief well.

Respect the young and chastise your elders. It's about time the world was set aright.

Sometimes," Father Dibue said, "though everything is in the Lord's Hands, undoubtedly, there's the urgent need to administer the Holy Sacrament of the Last Rites. Otherwise, the humble servant of the Lord lingers, such as now, waiting for grace, for absolution.

On the late afternoon streets, everyone hurries along, going about their own business.
Who is the person walking in front of you on the rain-drenched sidewalk?
He is covered with an umbrella, and all you can see is a dark coat and the shoes striking the puddles.
And yet this person is the hero of his own life story.
He is the love of someone's life.
And what he can do may change the world.
Imagine being him for a moment.
And then continue on your own way.

The compass rose is nothing but a star with an infinite number of rays pointing in all directions.
It is the one true and perfect symbol of the universe.
And it is the one most accurate symbol of you.
Spread your arms in an embrace, throw your head back, and prepare to receive and send coordinates of being. For, at last you know - you are the navigator, the captain, and the ship.

A sage is a former fool who has become tired of himself.
A foolish sage is one who forgets this.
Remember, or come full circle.

Stick around long enough to be someone's friend. Because true friendship, once recognized, in its essence is effortless.

In any case, age is nothing more than the acquisition of Temporal Perspective! Oh, and rheumatism too, I must add.

When hope is fleeting, stop for a moment and visualize, in a sky of silver, the crescent of a lavender moon. Imagine it
delicate, slim, precise, like a paper-thin slice from a cabochon jewel.
It may not be very useful, but it is beautiful.
And sometimes it is enough.

Don't be afraid of the dark. Shine!

Never look directly at the sun. Instead, look at the sunflower.

Don't let a loud few determine the nature of the sound. It makes for poor harmony and diminishes the song.

Why is wisdom so fair? Why is beauty so wise?
Because all else is temporary, while beauty and wisdom are the only real and constant aspects of truth that can be perceived by human means.
And I don't mean the kind of surface beauty that fades with age, or the sort of shallow wisdom that gets lost in platitudes.
True beauty grips your gut and squeezes your lungs, and makes you see with utmost clarity exactly what is before you.
True wisdom then steps in, to interpret, illuminate, and form a life-altering insight.

Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.

Here's a new 'Blessing' for our time
'May Anderson Cooper never be sent to report on your town!

It's a commonly expressed and rather nice, romantic notion that we are all "sisters" and "brothers."
Let's be real. Fact is, we might be better served to accept that we are all siblings.
Siblings fight, pull each other's hair, steal stuff, and accuse each other indiscriminately.
But siblings also know the undeniable fact that they are the same blood, share the same origins, and are family.
Even when they hate each other.
And that tends to put all things in perspective.

Thing is," Grial said in a conspiratorial voice, "let me tell you a little secret, girlie. That road- those roads, all roads and paths in fact- they never end. You might think they do. You might think they just narrow and fade and disappear in the hoary depths of the forest? Not so, not at all! They merely go into hiding, and you just have to search a bit harder to see them.

Is it folly to believe in something that is intangible? After all, some of the greatest intangibles are Love, Hope, and Wonder.
Another is Deity.
The choice to be a fool is yours.

Once upon a time, began the story of you.
Many perilous, wonderful, harrowing, brilliant, delightful, profound things happened.
And yet - the most exciting twists and best turns are yet to come. And it absolutely does not matter how old or young you are.
Like a bright carpet of wonders, enjoy the unrolling of your story.

Patience is not a virtue. It is an achievement.

Once upon a time there were two countries, at war with each other. In order to make peace after many years of conflict, they decided to build a bridge across the ocean. But because they never learned each other's language properly, they could never agree on the details, so the two halves of the bridge they started to build never met. To this day the bridge extends far into the ocean from both sides, and simply ends half way, miles in the wrong direction from the meeting point. And the two countries are still at war.

In the plains the grass grows tall, since there is no one to cut it. There is no one to water it either.

A fine glass vase goes from treasure to trash, the moment it is broken. Fortunately, something else happens to you and me. Pick up your pieces. Then, help me gather mine.