“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”
— Vincent van Gogh
Letter 274 to Theo van Gogh, written from The Hague, around October 1882. Part of the Letters corpus published by the Van Gogh Museum.
I failed as a clerk, a teacher, a theology student, and a missionary before I turned twenty-seven. Every respectable path closed on me. Then I picked up a pencil. I knew I had no training, no connections, no money. But I could see color the way other people hear music. I would have died of boredom in an office. If you feel trapped doing what is expected of you, stop. Find the thing that burns. It will cost you everything. It cost me everything. But I painted.