Duane Michals Quotes

Life doesn't last; art doesn't last. It doesn't matter.

Life is like a fire. Flames which the passer-by forgets. Ashes which the wind scatters. A man lived.

As for me, I'm just passin' through this planet.

We're all just passing time and occupy our chair very briefly.

Throughout much of our lives, our association with the temporary has risen. This transitory body, a sack of bones and flesh, is considered erroneously as our true body and we have accepted this temporary condition as conclusive.

Life is a bubble in a lake, that glitters for an instant, bursts, and leaves not even a blur on the water; it is the leap of a minnow, which sends a tiny ripple trembling for a few inches.

All life is no more than a match struck in the dark and blown out again.

Today's today. Tomorrow we may be ourselves gone down the drain of Eternity.

What I've been thinking about recently is the idea of finite and fragility. Either we're acknowledging that our lives here are finite, this moment is finite, and that this whole world is fragile, or we're not, but it is really happening and that is really true.

A man, when he burns, leaves only a handful of ashes. No woman can hold him. The wind must blow him away.

Dance is like life. It exists as you are flitting through it, and when it's over, it's done.

This was what it meant to be human, to know that time moved and all things changed.

Mortalhood is a fine state to visit, but you'd better not call it home.

Beautiful things never last. That’s why fireflies flash.

This body is not a home, but an inn; and that only for a short time.

What is life if not the shadow of a fleeting dream?

Time goes, you say? Ah, no! alas, time stays, we go.

This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

You are not a beautiful, unique snowflake... This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.

We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.

Our lives feel like these epochs, but really, we are dust in the wind.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.