The idea of our own rationality...was convincing to us only because we so wished to be convinced. To any impartial observer, could such a thing exist, the sham was patent. Emotion and instinct were the basis of all our decisions, our actions, everyth...
You'll have lots of questions to answer as you get older. Who you are. Who you want to be. What you think about things. Like politics. And romances. And whether you'll be able to speak out or keep your mouth shut. It's always a challenge to work out ...
Place me behind prison walls - walls of stone ever so high, ever so thick, reaching ever so far into the ground. There is a possibility that in some way or another I may be able to escape. But stand me on that floor and draw a chalk line around me an...
From the stage, I can reach a large audience, and you learn from being on stage how much a song reaches, what extent of the crowd a song can reach. I write in a way that can reach most of the audience, but I also wanted to have truly intimate moments...
How could you turn your back and walk off when there was so much left to say, How could you give up on me when it was nothing but just a evil phase, Why would you build boundaries when you knew they were going to break, Why wouldn't you come back as ...
I thought I had found my true vocation and happiness, but in a strange way, they were just like my stepmother because they didn't want me to grow up either. This is really important you understand, Virginia, because I had gone from something very bad...
The art is more important than the artist. The work is more important than the person who does it. You must be prepared to sacrifice all the you could possibly have, be, or do; you must be willing to go all the way for your art. If it is a question b...
If you are serious, and you want to make a living as an author, then you need to hustle. Period. If you can't make that quality, then you need to concentrate on your craft and practice more. One other thing, quality comes with practice. If you are pr...
A month into the semester, I would start showing up twenty minutes late to class again. The rewards weren't enough to keep me on task, and life got in the way. My mind wandered to the future, postcollege, when I'd create my own schedule that served m...
I believe when we’re able to fully own and express ourselves, we are able to tap into a creative power deeply rooted from our sexual energy – which is our creative energy. We’re so sexually loose, and also sexually strained. We don’t understa...
The Enlightenment may have made its most lasting impact in the way we live and think today through its social history. Our institutions and laws, our conception of the state, and our political sensitivity all stem from Enlightenment ideas… Remarkab...
Sometimes, people call my way of speaking ranting. Why are you always ranting and screaming, they ask. But here’s the thing…the reason why I rant is because I am a voice for many women that cannot speak out to heads of state, UN officials, and th...
It seemed so natural, receiving it, watching others receive it, assuming that the approval of others determined our worth. Then one day we found we couldn't feel any worth without it. We'd forgotten that we were gifted in ways unimaginable, created w...
trust me, Anita, if you get dead, especially if he blames himself in any way, he will be a force of destruction looking for a place to be aimed. And he's blamed himself for introducing you to Olaf here from the get-go. If Olaf did to you what he's do...
I remember how beautiful the Merrimac looked to me in childhood, the first true river I ever knew; it opened upon my sight and wound its way through my heart like a dream realized; its harebells, its rocks, and its rapids, are far more fixed in my me...
The thing is I have no ACL. So unless I get surgery, there's nothing really magical that I can do that's going to make it better. I just can get my leg stronger, my muscle stronger and try and support it a little more. But that has a small impact. My...
The wind was against them now, and Piglet's ears streamed behind him like banners as he fought his way along, and it seemed hours before he got them into the shelter of the Hundred Acre Wood and they stood up straight again, to listen, a little nervo...
There are two metaphors for Mario the person and not Mario the footballer. I think I am a man, but I don't believe I need to say it. But I could also be Peter Pan because I do things my own way and I am free. So, yes, maybe I should say that I am Pet...
I revise constantly, as I go along and then again after I've finished a first draft. Few of my novels contain a single sentence that closely resembles the sentence I first set down. I just find that I have to keep zapping and zapping the English lang...
But for each high, there's a low. Periods of such despair and listlessness that you don't ever see a way of getting out of it. Everything's bad. Nothing's ever going to be all right again. There's no reason to get out of bed in the morning. You don't...
There's so many mysteries related to how flies are able to make their way through the world. I'd certainly like to know a lot more about how their brain works. I'd certainly like to know a lot more about just how they're put together. I mean, these a...
