I have instructed myself, over and over, to keep my notebook handy at all times, but if you told me to describe myself in one word, it would be “not very good at following directions.
Coach Genghis rather.
I looked at the poor, sickly plant, trying to grow in the coffee grounds instead of the earth, where it belonged. I wondered what happened to things that grew up in the wrong place.
Nobody can teach you how to like something. You can like it, or you can pretend to like it, in order to make someone happy. Of course, that other person might be pretending too, and so on and so on and so on, with all the world in a chain of pretense and distrust.
Aye! Mind the ladder! Close the hatch behind you! Don’t rush! No – take your time! Don’t fall! Mind your step! Aye! Don’t trip! Don’t make noise! Don’t scare me! Don’t look down! No – look where you’re going! Don’t bring any flammable liquids with you! Watch your feet! Aye! No – watch your back! No – watch your mouth! No – watch yourselves! Aye!
Keep your eyes open! Look out below! Look out above! Look out for spies! Look out for one another! Look out! Aye! Be very careful! Be very aware! Be very much! Take a break! No – keep going! Stay awake! Calm down! Cheer up! Keep climbing! Keep your shirt on! Aye!
Sooner or later, everyone’s story has an unfortunate event or two – a schism or a death, a fire or a mutiny, the loss of a home or the destruction of a tea set.
Sunny’s mother was quickly mixing up a salad of sliced mango, black beans, and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice, and olive oil.
Everybody does something wrong at one time or another.
As far as I could tell, people didn’t do things because they were good or evil. They did things because they could not think of what else to do, and the only thing I could think of was finding out what was going on in this town.
You can’t see it on me, but hidden in the depths of my life is the permanent opinion that a match is a wicked thing. This is wrong, of course. It’s nonsense. A match is only as wicked as the person who is using it.
There are some stories you never get to finish.
People have done difficult things for more or less noble reasons.
Sometimes you can’t really tell when you are happy until it is over and you are thinking about it later.
I will suddenly remember this thing I did, and think to myself, Was it really necessary?
A proper library has at least one fantastic librarian, preferably more than one, so if the fantastic librarian goes out to lunch or falls into a tar pit, there will be a spare.
It is almost as if enormous philosophical questions are not designed to be answered at all, but just to make you think.
We must read mysterious literature, and be as bewildered by it as we are by the world, and we should write down our ideas, turning our stories, as if by magic, into literature.
Bravery often demands a price.
In any case, this is how all our stories begin, in darkness with out eyes closed, and all out stories end the same way, too.