Read a lot, live your life, and listen and watch, so that your mind fills up with millions of images.
You know, maybe that’s all anybody wants, is to be useful. And have somebody else notice it.
One thing I’m interested in is what shapes us: the people? The place where we live? It’s both of those and more. That’s what I keep coming back to.
I started thinking about life insurance and how nice it would be if you could get insurance that your life would be happy, and that everyone you knew could be happy, and they could all do what they really wanted to do, and they could all find the people they wanted to find.
My granny Torrelli says when you are angry with someone, so angry you are thinking hateful things, so angry maybe you want to punch them, then you should think of the good things about them, and the nice things they’ve said, and why you liked them in the first place.
It can’t be dead. It was alive just a minute ago.
Something I am wondering: if you cannot hear do you have no sounds in your head? Do you see a silent movie.
And what did I think when I was small and why did I forget? And what else will I forget when I grow older? And if you forget is it as if it never happened? Will none of the things you saw or thought or dreamed matter?
I don’t want to because boys don’t write poetry. Girls do.
So much depends upon a blue car splattered with mud speeding down the road.
Don’t be in too much of a rush to be published. There is enormous value in listening and reading and writing – and then putting your words away for weeks or months–and then returning to your work to polish it some more.
Then I thought, boy, isn’t that just typical? You wait and wait and wait for something, and then when it happens, you feel sad.
I tried. Can’t do it. Brain’s empty.
Sometimes when you are trying not to think about something it keeps popping back in your head you can’t help it you think about it and think about it and think about it until your brain feels like a squashed pea.
Life is like a bowl of spaghetti. Every once in a while, you get a meatball.
On that night after Phoebe had given her Pandora report, I thought about the Hope in Pandora’s box. Maybe when everything seemed sad and miserable, Phoebe and I could both hope that something might start to go right.
I was wishing I was invisible. Outside, the leaves were falling to the ground, and I was infinitely sad, sad down to my bones. I was sad for Phoebe and her parents and Prudence and Mike, sad for the leaves that were dying, and sad for myself, for something I had lost.
Man needs bread and hyacinths: one to feed the body, and one to feed the soul.
Relationships with parents, grandparents, friends, and siblings were important to me when I was young and have remained so throughout my life. Our relationships with other people both shape and reflect who we are. These relationships are infinitely fascinating to explore!
I wish that every baby everywhere could land in a family that wanted that baby as much as we want ours.