If we do what is necessary, all the odds are in our favor.
Back in 1992, I had my first story accepted by 'The New Yorker. '
What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.
Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.
I think it is time for a new pride in the intellectual life, and a new impatience with people who take pride in ignorance, or somehow use "elite" to mean "person who has taken the time to know" and then are eager to dismiss, say, striving, or the notion that improving one's self out of difficult conditions is a noble thing.
The thing I've discovered that is a help is that there isn't a simple virtue or a simple vice. They're always connected. If you have Tendency A, that you loathe, you can almost be sure that Tendency B, which you love, is somehow connected to it.
What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded. . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.
I am open to the accusation that I see compost as an end it itself. But we do grow some real red damn tomatoes such as you can't get in the stores. And potatoes, beans, lettuce, collards, onions, squash, cauliflower, eggplant, carrots, peppers. Dirt in you own backyard, producing things you eat. Makes you wonder.
Chase him down and stall for time. I need two more minutes. ” “Chase him down? How? The Neon has a flat. ” “With your own two feet!” “You mean exercise?
In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall succeed in our aims: the improvement of mankind.
Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.