Writers write what they can. The act of writing is a function that becomes effective only if it allows one to express one’s inner self. Italo Calvino, interviewed in the Paris Review in 1983. It’s Calvino’s birthday today! (via kickstarter)
Quotes
Trust & Value
Trust, is the only currency with any value. Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison - Sleepy Hollow S2E03)
You are free to write about anything—whatever you find necessary to tell your story. You are free to pick material that you are drawn to, remembering that you may be drawn to what is strange or frankly appalling. Do not resist that appeal, no matter how disgraceful or unreasonable it may look. In a talk … Continue reading
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.Maya Angelou
Find Your Beach
There’s a reason so many writers once lived here, beyond the convenient laundromats and the take-out food, the libraries and cafés. We have always worked off the energy generated by this town, the money-making and tower-building as much as the street art and underground cultures. Zadie Smith on Manhattan, Find Your Beach by Zadie Smith | … Continue reading Find Your Beach
The challenge for anybody working with words is entirely the challenge of language. It’s a problem that language for us is the speech of the everyday. It’s our shopping list, our laundry list as well as our poetic expression. No other art form suffers from this so particularly. When you give people a book, or … Continue reading
The Master said, ‘Is it not a pleasure to learn and, when it is timely, to practice what you have learned? Is it not a joy to have friends coming from afar? Is it not gentlemanly not to become resentful if no one takes notice of your learning?’ Confucius, The Analects Monday First Lines | Every … Continue reading
There is always a crisis, perhaps you should consider living a life during them, otherwise you might miss it. Captain Hook - Colin O'Donoghue (#ouat season 4)
The human heart
What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains. Tennessee Williams
Words to live by
You should be nice to people on the way up because you might meet them again on the way down.Philomena
Worn Out Spines 