As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes.
The fact is that blank pages inspire me with terror. What will I put on them? Will it be good enough? Will I have to throw it out?
God gave unto the Animals A wisdom past our power to see: Each knows innately how to live, Which we must learn laboriously.
I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me.
Creating some god for one’s inspirations was always a good way to avoid accusations of pride should the scheme succeed, as well as the blame if did not.
There’s nothing like drawing a thing to make you really see it.
Anaesthesia, that’s one technique: if it hurts, invent a different pain.
But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.
Writing is very improvisational. It’s like trying to fix a broken sewing machine with safety pins and rubber bands. A lot of tinkering.
You can’t keep a cool head when you’re drowning in love. You just trash around a lot and scream, and wear yourself out.
I’ll make you mine, lovers said in old books. They never said, I’ll make you me.
I felt white, drained of blood, cared for, purified. Peaceful.
Blank pages inspire me with terror.
It isn’t chic for women to be drunk. Men drunks are more excusable, more easily absolved, but why? It must be thought they have better reasons.
She had no images of this love. She could offer no anecdotes. It was a belief rather than a memory.
A prison does not only lock its inmates inside, it keeps all others out. Her strongest prison is of her own construction.
How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age.
There’s something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you’re still alive.
Is anything wrong, dear? the old joke went. No, why? You moved. Just don’t move.
A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. Think of it as the altar of the Muse Oblivion, to whom you sacrifice your botched first drafts, the tokens of your human imperfection.