The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.

Life is an art not to be learned by observation.

The art of life is to stay wide open and be vulnerable, yet at the same time to sit with the mystery and the awe and with the unbearable pain — to just be with it all.

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and endure very much

The whole art of living is to make use of the individuals through whom we suffer.

[T]he art of life is more like navigation than warfare, for what is important is to understand the winds, the tides, the currents, the seasons, and the principles of growth and decay, so that one's actions may use them and not fight them.

...the art of living involves the act of creation. The work of art is nothing. It is only the tangible, visible evidence of a way of life, which, if it is not crazy is certainly different from the accepted way of life... For the artist to attach himself to his work, or identify himself with it, is suicidal.

Life is an art we are required to practice without preparation, a score that we play at sight even before we have mastered our instruments.

Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure. . . Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.

Life is to be lived, not controlled.

The art of living. Isn't that a funny expression?

as we are creative beings, our lives become our work of art.

He learns the art of “letting things happen,” which is no mere passivity but, on the contrary, a creative technique familiar to the activity of many artists, musicians, and inventors in our own culture, whereby skill and insight are found to be the fruits of a certain “dynamic” relaxation.

Life is, if anything, the art of combination. Of discrimination. Of freely picking one's own personal pattern out of a hundred choices. Not letting it be picked for you — either by the Establishment, or by the Rebels. Conformity of Hip is no better than Conformity of Square.