Jonas Mekas Quotes

There is only the moment. The now. Only what you are experiencing at this second is real.

Much as we wish, not one of us can bring back yesterday or shape tomorrow. Only today is ours, and it will not be ours for long, and once it is gone it will never in all time be ours again. Thou only knowest what it holds in store for us, yet even we know something of what it will hold. The chance to speak the truth, to show mercy, to ease another’s burden. The chance to resist evil, to remember all the good times and good people of our past, to be brave, to be strong, to be glad.

I wrote 'My Name is Red' just to remember painting, where the hand does it before the intellect. When I'm captive to it, I'm a happier person. Kierkegaard tells us that a happy person is someone who lives in the present; the unhappy person, someone who lives either in the past or the future.

I have always wanted to live in the present and never the past.

The point of power is always in the present moment.

My past is my wisdom to use today... my future is my wisdom yet to experience. Be in the present because that is where life resides.

People sacrifice the present for the future. But life is available only in the present. That is why we should walk in such a way that every step can bring us to the here and the now.

I love having no sense of tomorrow or yesterday.

You always feel the drawing you are working on is the best you've ever done... I am only interested in the present.

It doesn't have anything to do with yesterday or tomorrow, it's all right now.

A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

I hope I have a long career, but I really don't think about the future like that. I live, like, for right now, honestly. I take it however it comes.

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

The present moment, if you think about it, is the only time there is. No matter what time it is, it is always now.

God exists in eternity. The only point where eternity meets time is in the present. The present is the only time there is.

I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.

I always live in the present. Every night, my mother asks me what I want for breakfast the next morning, and I say that I can only tell her that when I wake up the next day.

I do like the idea that tomorrow I might find out that I'm going to be doing something that is completely unknowable today. I think it forces you to live in the moment in a very good way.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

I think it's very important to live in the present. One of the great things that improvising teaches you is the magic of the moment that you're in because, when you improvise, you're in right now. You're not in yesterday or tomorrow - you're right in the moment.

Life gives you plenty of time to do whatever you want to do if you stay in the present moment.

I live in the present and do not look that far ahead.

I'm always living in the moment.

The reality is there is only each present moment: You are called to give a talk. You get out of a building and into a car. You look out of the window. You arrive at the venue. You sit in the chair; you wait; you step out onto the stage. Every movement is simple. There is only that.