There is no less or greater in an absolute thing. All or nothing at all, the true lover says, and that's the truth of it. My love will never die, he says. He claims eternity. And rightly. How can it die when it is life itself? What do we know of eternity but the glimpse …
Roger Angell On Death
All the dead from wars and natural events and school shootings and street crimes and domestic crimes that each of us has once again escaped and felt terrible about and plan to go and leave wreaths or paper flowers at the site of. There’s never anything new about death, to be sure, except its improved …
Stephen Dunn On Writing
I think one of my early motivations for writing was that other people's versions of experience didn't gel with my own. It was a gesture toward sanity to try to get the world right for myself. I've since learned that if you get it right for yourself, it often has resonance for others.
Virginia Woolf On Reading
I have sometimes dreamt that when the Day of Judgment dawns — the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, "Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.”
Anne Rice On Writing
There are no rules. It’s amazing how willing people are to tell you that you aren’t a real writer unless you conform to their clichés and their rules. My advice? Reject rules and critics out of hand. Define yourself. Do it your way. Make yourself the writer of your dreams.
Luis Cernuda On Love
I know well enough that this image — fixed forever in my mind is not you, but the shadow of love which exists in me...and although I know this, I then think that without you, without the rare excuse you gave me, my love, now a tenderness, today, would be there within, sleeping still and …
Philip K. Dick On Fear
Fear can make you do more wrong than hate or jealousy. If you're afraid you don't commit yourself to life completely; fear makes you always, always hold something back.
