Marlon Brando image

You remain convinced that art, whether you study it or love it or engage in it, will change your life, and it won't. How do you change a life? We are predestined to live out the life chosen for us by birth and habit and chance. We can enhance and jiggle the life, but nothing changes it in the dramatic way we hope for. I am the ideal candidate to look toward in this severe disappointment. I looked for deliverance from all things, but there is no deliverance. There is only acceptance, a little denial, and a great deal of grace. That is the real recipe, but it's not one that will have people storming down the doors of the schools and the academies.
The reward is within the performance of whatever it is you need to do. It is in the brushstroke. It is in the performance. It is in the act of sex or the act of eating. It is in the act and never in the moments beyond the act. I fell for that. Everyone falls for that. Life is a moment-by-moment experience, and you do have to love whatever you're doing in that moment. And then it's gone. And then the acceptance, the denial, and the grace start all over again.
Stop looking for the dramatic alteration to life. Look for the life in the moments you have.
—Marlon Brando