A deaf composer's like a cook who's lost his sense of taste. A frog that's lost its webbed feet. A truck driver with his license revoked. That would throw anybody for a loop, don't you think? But Beethoven didn't let it get to him. Sure, he must have...
Our hearts bear a similarity with storerooms. We hold in them our trampled convictions, our fears, suppressed acts of valor, disappointments, enmity, anguish, secrets, things we wish we should have done, things we wish we shouldn’t have, regret. An...
When I started to draw, most of my influences were from other painters and illustrators, so I was drawing landscape at second hand, really. The trees were Rackham trees, or trees that I had seen in paintings rather than from my own observation...and ...
When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe that you need to hide that damage for anyone to love you. You walk around ashamed of being yourself. You try hard to make up for the way you look, walk, ...
She had been to her Great-Aunt Willoughby’s before, and she knew exactly what to expect. She would be asked about her lessons, and how many marks she had, and whether she had been a good girl. I can’t think why grownup people don’t see how impe...
Kalkbrenner has made me an offer; that I should study with him for three years, and he will make something really - really out of me. I answered that I know how much I lack; but that I cannot exploit him, and three years is too much. But he has convi...
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like...
All people want to belong to some sort of hierarchy. Allow me to explain. The rich want to be the richest; the poor want to be the smartest; those who are both rich and smart want to be the better persons; the better persons want to go to heaven; tho...
Lots of people are born into lives that feel like a journey in the very middle of a big ship on familiar seas; they sit comfortably, crossing their legs, they know when the sun will rise and when the moon will wane, they have plans that they follow, ...
Why are we bringing him along, again?" Will inquired, of the world in general as well as his sister. Cecily put her hands on her hips. "Why are you bringing Tessa?" "Because Tessa and I are going to be married," Will said, and Tessa smiled; the way t...
Love is an emotion that creeps up at you like darkness; you become wary watching love come at you like a scary movie with billows of black smoke, puffy like racing towards a doomed target. Love can also be like lounging on the beach, listening to the...
I write weird stories. I don't know why I like weirdness so much. Myself, I'm a very realistic person. I don't trust anything New Age -- or reincarnation, dreams, Tarot, horoscopes. I don't trust anything like that at all. I wake up at 6 in the morni...
I can understand that people want to feel special and important and so on, but that self-obsession seems a bit pathetic somehow. Not being able to accept that you're just this collection of cells, intelligent to whatever degree, capable of feeling em...
She was suddenly roused by the sound of the door-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to inquire particularly after her....
How Did You Die? Did you tackle that trouble that came your way With a resolute heart and cheerful? Or hide your face from the light of day With a craven soul and fearful? Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce, Or a trouble is what you make ...
Shepherd Book: What are we up to, sweetheart? River: Fixing your Bible. Book: I, um... What? River: Bible's broken. Contradictions, false logistics - doesn't make sense. Shepherd Book: No, no. You-you-you can't... River: So we'll integrate non-progre...
What you need is a chick from Camden,' Van Patten says, after recovering from McDermott's statement. Oh great,' I say. 'Some chick who thinks it's okay to fuck her brother.' Yeah, but they think AIDS is a new band from England,' Price points out. Whe...
I've been actively engaged with mythic imagery ever since I picked up that Rackham book, but it really came into focus for me when I moved from London to the country. As I walked the extraordinary landscape of Dartmoor, I looked at the trees and the ...
Do not oversleep and miss the school bus- you'll be late. That's a habit teachers generally don't appreciate. Never tell your friends at school that you still wet your bed. They are sure to tease you, and you'll wish that you were dead. Never call yo...
To a man without a country, He appeared a joint sojourner. To Joshua armed but afraid, He came a valiant warrior. To Moses raised up on the mount, He was the One yet higher. To Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, He was the fourth man in the fire. To El...
I can certainly throw out some observation about the process of creating which may be of use. Firstly, it's the best & the worst of worlds, because the only fuel you have to make the fire blaze on the page / screen is the stuff of your own being. An ...
