Fermine

...to write, is to feel your way step by step along a thread of beauty. Along the thread of a poem, or of a story unfolding on sheet of silk. For the poet, like the tightrope walker, must go forward, word by word, page by after page, along the path of a book. And the most difficult thing is not that you must keep your footing on the rope of language, with only a pen for balance; nor to keep going straight ahead, when the way is blocked by the sudden drop of a comma, or the obstacle of a full stop. No, the difficulty for the poety is to stay on the rope that is writing, to live every moment without losing sight of his dream, and to never come down, not even for a second, from the rope of imagination.

...love is the most difficult of all arts. And to write, or to dance, to compose, or to paint, these are the same thing as to love. It is like walking a high-wire. The most difficult thing is to keep going forward, without falling. And this is what happened to Soseiki. Eventually he fell. Because of his love for a woman. And it was his art that saved him from despair and death.

Color is not something outside us. It is within us. Only the light is outside.

(Maxence Fermine, "Snow")