Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time.
Beware of using up your last forty years in being the curator of your first fifty.
Know something, sugar? Stories only happen to people who can tell them.
Without much accuracy, with strangely little love at all, your family will decide for you exactly who you are, and they'll keep nudging, coaxing, poking you until you've changed into that very simple shape.
You have a different kind of tenderness for everybody you know.
I think Walt Whitman went to the help wanted section and found a squib that said "Wanted: National Poet. " And he was innocent enough to believe there really was such a job. And if he could just write a poem that incorporated everything he felt and suspected and hoped for from America that he would have the position.
Writing is a kind of free fall that you then go back and edit and shape.
There's a good case to be made that having fun is a key evolutionary advantage right next to opposable thumbs in terms of importance. Without that little chemical twist in our brains that makes us enjoy learning new things, we might be more like the sharks and ants of the world.
The unusual is only found in a very small percentage, except in literary creations, and that is exactly what makes literature.
Taylor Swift is so flawless, and so unattainable, and I don't think it's breeding anything good in young girls.
I screwed up. Again. You're shocked, I'm sure.