Crystallization of Amber Moments

Peace by Thomas Edwin Mostyn

Find peace in where and what you are. — Christopher Paolini, Eragon

Muddy Alligators by John Singer Sargent

Far off in the red mangroves an alligator has heaved himself onto a hummock of grass and lies there, studying his poems. — Mary Oliver

Pyramids of Giza — Sunset Afterglow by Thomas Seddon, 1856

As time goes on, you’ll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn’t, doesn’t. Time solves most things. And what time can’t solve, you have to solve yourself. — Haruki Murakami

Sunshine by Tom Mostyn

The weather turned. Her skin seemed to grow a million extra pores, and all of them opened to take in the warmth and tenderness of the air. The sun on her face made her want to cry. Into all those millions of open pores came the sunshine, and other feelings as well. In and out. She was porous. — Ann Brashares

The Caged Bird by John Byam Liston Shaw, 1907

I am a cage, in search of a bird. — Franz Kafka

illustration by Arthur Rackham

Shh! Don’t tell yourself! — L. Vincent Abbot

Reading the News painted by James Jacques Joseph Tissot

I read the newspapers with lively interest. It is seldom that they are absolutely, point-blank wrong. That is the popular belief, but those who are in the know can usually discern an embryo of truth, a little grit of fact, like the core of a pearl, round which have been deposited the delicate layers of ornament. — Evelyn Waugh, Scoop 

Judge, 1913

Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself. — Henry James, referring to art critics