Put briefly, we remember too much, and too little of it lasts. — Daniel Cross Turner, from “Lost Highways and Ethereal Landscapes: Cartographic Memory in the Poetry of Charles Wright,” Southern Crossings: Poetry, Memory, and the Transcultural South (University of Tennessee Press, 2012)
Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system. — Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. (Farrar,… Continue reading Flannery O’Connor
Life steals everything. — Katherine Hepburn [Violet Venable] Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Based on the play of the same name written by Tennessee Williams. (Dramatists Play Service, Inc., January 1998) Originally published January 1st 1958.
The black sky was underpinned with long silver streaks that looked like scaffolding and depth on depth behind it were thousands of stars that all seemed to be moving very slowly as if they were about some vast construction work that involved the whole universe and would take all time to complete. No one was… Continue reading Flannery O’Connor
While I fear that we’re drawn to what abandons us, and to what seems most likely to abandon us, in the end I believe we’re defined by what embraces us. ” —J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar. (Hachette Books July 26, 2006)
So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life. — Mary Oliver, from “Mornings at Blackwater,” Red Bird: Poems. (Beacon Press April 1, 2008)
The Vale of Soul-Making 