February 2013
2 posts
6 tags
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung...”
– The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis
9 tags
“The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.”
– Clifton Fadiman
January 2013
1 post
December 2012
1 post
7 tags
A True Poem, by Lloyd Schwartz
I’m working on a poem that’s so true, I can’t show it to anyone.
I could never show it to anyone.
Because it says exactly what I think, and what I think scares me.
Sometimes it pleases me.
Usually it brings misery.
And this poem says exactly what I think.
What I think of myself, what I think of my friends, what I think about my lover.
Exactly.
Parts of it might please them, some of it...
November 2012
16 posts
6 tags
“When I love, it will be forever.”
– The Sense and Sensibility: Screenplay & Diaries : Bringing Jane Austen’s Novel to Film, Emma Thompson
12 tags
“They sang the praises of nature, of the sea, of the woods. They liked making...”
– “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man,”The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
12 tags
“It’s kind of sad, if you think about it. Like there’s no continuity...”
– Before I Fall, Lauren Oliver
8 tags
“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then...”
– The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
7 tags
“The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity—it’s envy....”
– Life of Pi, Yann Martel
5 tags
“I want to tell you about your heart—you’ve probably been neglecting your...”
– This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12 tags
“These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire...”
– Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene VI, William Shakespeare
9 tags
“In your reading, find books to improve your color sense, your sense of shape,...”
– Ray Bradbury
12 tags
“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter....”
– Chocolat, Joanne Harris
17 tags
Blowing Wishes
If you asked her what she was doing, she probably would have told you nothing. It was nothing that she in the park at midnight, just like it was nothing that she was alone. The things fisted in her hands were probably nothing too.
Her favorite pen, metal-barreled and sleek.
A scrap of tissue paper.
The thumbstone in her pocket.
The last item wasn’t necessary, but she knew from literature...
8 tags
“But we can’t live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light...”
– A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray
7 tags
“You do not conceive a novel as easily as you conceive a child, nor even half as...”
– Zelda Popkin
15 tags
“Our contradictions. We are in such a hurry to grow up, and then we long for our...”
– Paulo Coelho
6 tags
“The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.”
– Margaret Atwood
18 tags
Es ist was es ist
It is nonsense says reason It is what it is says love It is misfortune says calculation It is nothing but pain says fear It is hopeless says insight It is what it is says love It is laughable says pride It is frivolous says caution It is impossible says experience It is what it is says love
- Erich Fried
8 tags
“She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.”
– The Hours, Michael Cunningham
October 2012
7 posts
5 tags
““You kissed me beside a pond.”
“Ten thousand years...”
– The Hours, Michael Cunningham
14 tags
“These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and...”
– The Hours, Michael Cunningham
8 tags
“There is a beauty in the world, though it’s harsher than we expect it to...”
– The Hours, Michael Cunningham
14 tags
“There is just this for consolation: an hour here or there, when our lives seem,...”
– The Hours, Michael Cunningham
12 tags
“First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles...”
– Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
9 tags
“You could rattle the stars,” she whispered. “You could do anything,...”
– Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Maas
7 tags
“She went on because there was no going back.”
– Shadowfell, Juliet Marillier
September 2012
28 posts
5 tags
“Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high”
– The Princess Bride, William Goldman
8 tags
“Nouns, verbs, are the workhorses of language. Especially in dialogue, don’t say,...”
– John P. Marquand
8 tags
“Well, I suppose cooking is like magic in a way. Spells are just recipes after...”
– The Food of Love, Anthony Capella
9 tags
“I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his...”
– Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
7 tags
“Henrietta was a literary woman, and the great advantage of being a literary...”
– The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
4 tags
“You’re the only girl I’ve seen for a very long time that actually did look like...”
– Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
4 tags
“It’s okay,” I said, wishing I was dead and buried somewhere. Or at...”
– The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton
11 tags
“Eat me now,” they seemed to whisper; “seize me quickly. For the...”
– The Food of Love, Anthony Capella
7 tags
“Dialogue in fiction should be reserved for the culminating moments and regarded...”
– Edith Wharton
14 tags
“Food is all those substances which, submitted to the action of the stomach, can...”
– The Physiology of Taste, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
6 tags
“Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.”
– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, F. Scott Fitzgerald
30 tags
“Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a...”
– Introduction, Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman
10 tags
“Mm. You want to hear a story? True story? Stories always used to be good...”
– “Murder Mysteries”, Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman
16 tags
Elegy for a Family Man
So this is what grief feels like: An upwelling lump in your throat; Deep, even breaths forcibly taken, Respiring like wind through sunken tunnels, Moving like too-thick blood in stiffened veins.
Look up, see the wooden beams carved “into your hands I commend my”—
No. Look down. Let your eyes dart from muddled shadow to puddled light. Gaze through the coffin. See nothing— Not the...
14 tags
“It is not so,” I assured him. The fair woman’s smile
glittered...”
– “The White Road”, Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman
10 tags
“She was twenty-one, for God’s sake. She must be allowed to grow up. By the...”
– Weekend in Paris, Robyn Sisman
9 tags
“Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water...”
– On Writing, Stephen King
9 tags
“Of course, fairy tales are transmissible. You can catch them, or be infected by...”
– Introduction, Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman
6 tags
“Writing’s a lot like cooking. Sometimes the cake won’t rise, no...”
– Introduction, Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman
9 tags
“I think…that I would rather recollect a life mis-spent on fragile things...”
– Introduction, Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman
12 tags
“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting...”
– On Writing, Stephen King
6 tags
“She prays she’s bought another clutch of days.
We save our lives in such...”
– “Inventing Aladdin”, Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman
23 tags
Unforgotten
In the midst of my daily agonies— The ups and downs, The growing pains of being 21, single, jobless (despite alcohol, curves, a quarter-million degree)— I am grateful for the familiarity of home.
Fortunately, I have a mother (repetitive with her worrying but unconditionally loving), Two brothers (infuriatingly immature but siblings all the same), And an entire Yggdrasil of extended family...
