Murray Kempton Quotes

The physical journey in my films is indicative of the internal journey that my characters take.

The spiritual journey does not consist of arriving at a new destination where a person gains what he did not have, or becomes what he is not. It consists in the dissipation of one's own ignorance concerning oneself and life, and the gradual growth of that understanding which begins the spiritual awakening. The finding of God is a coming to one?s self.

When the movie comes to an end, you are not totally the same person you are when you started the movie.

The main thing God gets out of your life is not the achievements you accomplish. It's the person you become.

I believe that a man is converted when first he hears the low, vast murmur of life, of human life, troubling his hitherto unconscious self.

My characters tend to be more dynamic because they're reaching that point in their lives where their old way of being is breaking down. They're conflicted by the idea that they don't know what's next. You could call it Kierkegaard's leap of faith, when you get tired of sort of reinventing yourself on a very superficial level.

A big part of what I wanted to do with this character was go from when I was a boy and try and develop into a man, really try and play him as a man who is on this search, on a journey of personal, spiritual, political, social discovery.

'The Magic Flute,' I think, is fundamentally asking what is it to change people's consciousness.

There has already been the karmic work: that what life has transformed in me, this initiation brought on, of necessity, by trials.

Each of my novels features a protagonist undertaking a difficult personal journey. On the way, each of these characters - mostly female - discovers something about herself and at the same time makes an impact on other people's lives.

The final goal of all human endeavor is the development of the human soul.

Main characters should grow and change during the course of a story.

'Moonlight' has changed my life externally but also internally... spiritually as well.

Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also - if this isn't too grand a word - our tragedy.

The hero's journey is simply who we are as human beings.

As a character, it's very interesting to play someone who wants to change their life and have him change it.

THE MALE JOURNEY t some point in time, a man needs to embark on a risky -journey. It's a necessary adventure that takes him into uncertainty, and it almost always involves some form of difficulty or failure. On this journey the man learns to trust God more than he trusts a sense of right and wrong or his own sense of self-worth.

The psych up comes from knowing what I can both give and get from each role. I get a lot personally from each character I play that I am able to carry over into my everyday life.

When heart is open, you will change just like a flower slowly opening.

We don't know all the reasons that propel us on a spiritual journey, but somehow our life compels us to go.

It takes years to develop into the kind of human being you want to be.

The truth is that the man I am was born in those moments, as I stood near the flood sticks with my face lifted to the chrismal rain. Shantaram. The better man that, slowly, and much too late, I began to be.

In a way I think why the Ghost story is very relatable to a large audience is that it's kind of a coming of age story and it's a realisation of 'I am what I am - what has happened to me, good or bad, that is the sum of who I am now'.

Yoga is the journey from just eating and sleeping to becoming an ecstatic being. This is the aspiration of life itself.

God's ultimate goal for your life on earth is not comfort, but character development. He wants you to grow up spiritually and become like Christ.