"On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough."

“Faith is not a blind thing; for faith begins with knowledge. It is not a speculative thing; for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It is not an unpractical, dreamy thing; for faith trusts, and stakes its destiny upon the truth of revelation.”

“In looking for my mind, I discovered that it seems to be in many different places. Sometimes it is drinking a glass of water, remembering swimming in the summer, feeling the breeze. In this contemplation I observed that the self is more elusive than I thought.”

“I don't feel like I'm standing in a position where I have some right above other people to say what I think. We should all be talking to each other about what we think is important - whether we're in politics, or whether we're checking out at a grocery store. We shouldn't put walls up between each other.”

“The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility.”

Source : Susan Orlean (2009). “The Orchid Thief”, p.133, Random House

“Women have always been at the forefront of progressive movements. Women can be depended on when you need bodies in the streets for women's rights and human rights.”

“Camera lies all the time. It’s all it does is lie, because when you choose this moment instead of this moment, when you… the moment you’ve made a choice, you’re lying about something larger. Lying is an ugly word. I don’t mean lying. But any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.”

“After 35, I felt like I'd been in these relationships; some were great, some weren't so great, but they weren't right partnerships.”

Source : "5 Questions with Essence Atkins on Pregnancy, Marriage and Finding Love Online". Interview with Lathleen Ade-Brown, www.essence.com. October, 21, 2011.

“My dad had been an ardent amateur photographer, and he taught me to compose a photograph from the back to the front, and then populate the picture.”