Category: Quote

“Writing as an act of optimism? Maybe that’s true. …

On By Christina's WordsIn Quote

“Writing as an act of optimism? Maybe that’s true. I mean, why bother if you have no hope, even a very small hope, for our species. Maybe, as artists, we think that if we stop and look closely, or if we look closely enough, something good could come of that gaze, something apprehended. O’Keefe seemed actually to do the opposite, bring us close to see the pain in the beauty, or as Rilke would say, the terror of beauty. Kahlo took her physical pain and yes, made it oddly beautiful. Did it take courage for them to do that? I don’t think they had a choice. Artists seem to be compelled to do what they do, obsessed, preternaturally alert to the world, not just to pain and beauty, but as you say, the existence of each within the other. And for some reason, they feel compelled to make something of that, write it down, make a painting of it, a sculpture, a song.

–Dorianne Laux

In parallel with Words for the Weekend: Write Every Single Day – Vol. 27

The most important things are the hardest to say

On By JennieIn Quote

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”

~Stephen King, Different Seasons

“Poetic Eggs” ~Ezra Pound

On By JennieIn Poetry, Quote5 Comments

I am a grave poetic hen
That lays poetic eggs
And to enhance my temperament
A little quiet begs.

We make the yolk philosophy,
True beauty the albumen.
And then gum on a shell of form
To make the screed sound human.

~Ezra Pound

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow…

On By JennieIn Quote2 Comments

“I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people’s eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.” ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“Somewhere, and I can’t find where, I read about an Eskimo hunter …

On By Christina's WordsIn Quote2 Comments

“Somewhere, and I can’t find where, I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?” “No,” said the priest, “not if you did not know.” “Then why,” asked the Eskimo earnestly, “did you tell me?”

– Annie Dillard