Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
Hell is a different place for each man, or each man has his own particular hell. My descent into the inferno is a descent into the irrational level of existence, where the instincts and blind emotions are loose, where one lives by pure impulse, pure fantasy, and therefore pure madness. No, that is not the… Continue reading Anaïs Nin
you boys can keep your virgins give me hot old women in high heels. — Charles Bukowski, from “One of the Hottest,” Love Is a Dog from Hell. (Ecco; Ecco edition May 31, 2002) Originally published 1977.
If ever I don’t say To the hour of life that I can wish for: Stay, Thou art so fair! why, you may have my— Shadow. — Randall Jarrell, from “A Conversation with the Devil,” The Complete Poems (The Noonday Press, 1990)
(You chose the colours of the sun, not the dried neutrals of shadow. God knows you’ve tried.) — Margaret Atwood, from “Up,” Morning in the Burned House. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 1995)
But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in. — Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. (Riverhead Books September 6, 2007)
Something in me vibrates to the dusky, dreamy smell—a smell of dying moons and shadows. — Zelda Fitzgerald, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. (Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New edition edition October 6, 2003) Edited by Jackson R. Bryer & Cathy W. Barks; Originally published 1985.
My heart had grown older, with more in it to break. — Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna. (Harper; 1 edition November 3, 2009)
I close my eyes, inhale, and feel a rush of heat and energy that takes my breath away. It is the feeling of wanting something so much that it borders on an actual need, and the power and urgency of this need overwhelms me. — Emily Griffin, Love the One You’re With. (St. Martin’s Press;… Continue reading Emily Griffin
What use is moonlight? I reach into it, fingers open, and my hand is silvered and blessed, and comes back to me holding nothing. — Margaret Atwood, from “Sumacs,” Interlunar. (Oxford University Press; First Edition edition 1984)
The Vale of Soul-Making 