All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause – there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, o...
The poet must always, in every instance, have the vibrant word... that by it's trenchancy can so wound my soul that it whimpers.... One must know and recognize not merely the direct but the secret power of the word; one must be able to give one's wri...
Since a time has come, Mademoiselle, when the severe laws of men no longer prevent women from applying themselves to the sciences and other disciplines, it seems to me that those of us who can should use this long-craved freedom to study and to let m...
When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it ...
In front of me 327 pages of the manuscript [ ] (about 22 chapters). The most important remains - editing, and it's going to be hard. I will have to pay close attention to details. Maybe even re-write some things... 'What's its future?' you ask? I don...
The search for liberty is simply part of the greater search for a world where respect for the rule of law and human rights is universal—a world free of dictators, terrorists, warmongers and fanatics, where men and women of all nationalities, races,...
A writer can live by his writing. If not so luxuriously as by other trades, then less luxuriously. The nature of the work he does all day will more affect his happiness than the quality of his dinner at night. Whatever be your calling, and however mu...
I'll tell you what you did with Atheists for about 1500 years. You outlawed them from the universities or any teaching careers, besmirched their reputations, banned or burned their books or their writings of any kind, drove them into exile, humiliate...
I cleaned the shit off my pink high-tops and drove home, stopping for an espresso at the coffeehouse across from the college. Men and women were hunched over copies of Jean Paul Sartre and writing in their journals. Most wore the thin-rimmed tortoise...
God is funny. He had a funny day when he made me. A funny, thoughtful, crazy day. He gave me a physique by which I would be so easily and so quickly judged, then gave me a mind by which I would so deeply magnetize, He put within me a heart with small...
My mother, who is a pianist and a fine artist, purchased a piano for me. Twice. This was back when I was a small girl. Pianos, of course, came complete with the quintessential piano teacher who whacked my hand with a stick each time I struck the wron...
Writing isn't about creating perfect characters. There's no such thing. It's about creating characters that are real; flawed-- yet beautiful, in that they know they need another person. Needing someone else doesn't make them weak; if they believed al...
She wanted to write to him. Tell him she was glad he was back, that he was alive, that he was home and safe. But words to him no longer fit right in her her mouth.Words which belonged in his ownership were no longer hers to give. Silence was the only...
It is notorious that the news of the Emancipation Proclamation was kept from the people of Texas and not celebrated until 'Juneteenth'. There may be those in Texas now who believe they can insulate their state—a state that had its own courageous re...
Isaac Deutscher was best known—like his compatriot Joseph Conrad—for learning English at a late age and becoming a prose master in it. But, when he writes above, about the ‘fact’ that millions of people ‘may’ conclude something, he commit...
A large class of readers … will suffer greatly from the introduction into the pages of this work of words printed with all their letters, which it has become the custom to represent by the initial and final letter only—a blank line filling the in...
...I've been ripped off, lied to, slandered, gossiped about slapped, falsely accused, and had my truths not believed. I've had my heart broken, had my pride stomped on, witnessed unforgivable acts, and heard words that hurt so much I withed that they...
Very early on in writing the series, I remember a female journalist saying to me that Mrs Weasley, 'Well, you know, she’s just a mother.' And I was absolutely incensed by that comment. Now, I consider myself to be a feminist, and I’d always wante...
the whole Bible is itself a missional phenomenon. The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of and witness to the ultimate mission of God. The Bible renders to us the story of God's mission through God's people in their enga...
No writing is effortless. I’m not saying you can’t have a good day where the words just kind of flow, but even those words have to be edited. Probably more than once. And I’m not saying a character hasn’t somehow gone in a different direction...
Henry,' at last said one, again dipping the spoon into the flaming spirit, 'hast thou read Hoffman?' 'I should think so,' said Henry. 'What think you of him?' 'Why, that he writes admirably; and, moreover, what is more admirable - in such a manner th...
