Raymond Carver
Carver:
You never start out in life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat or a thief. Or a liar.
Interviewer:
And you were all those things?
Carver:
I was.
what i want to read now
Her debut novel, Wetlands, has sold half a million copies at home and is so sexually explicit that people are said to have fainted at readings.
Rabbi Zusya
In The Way of Man, philosopher Martin Buber relates a Hasidic parable about one Rabbi Zusya, a self-effacing scholar who has a deathbed revelation that he shares with the friends keeping vigil at his side. “In the next life, I shall not be asked: ‘Why were you not more like Moses?’” he says. “I shall be asked: ‘Why were you not more like Zusya?’”
what we fight with is so small
Don’t be afraid to fail. There’s a wonderful poem by Rainer Maria Rilke that talks about the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with an angel, being defeated, but coming away stronger from the fight. It ends with an exhortation that goes something like this: “What we fight with is so small, and when we win, it makes us small. What we want is to be defeated, decisively, by successively greater things.”
100 snacks under $10
Jan 4, 2009
Best bites
Who says you can’t eat well under $10? LifeStyle gives you 100 tasty snacks to tickle your tastebuds
the Daily Telegraph writes the best obituaries
Neil Gaiman thinks that the Daily Telegraph writes the best obituaries and this is his favourite.
His new year message is very warm:
…I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth
Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy and Epilogue 1979-1985: The Ghost Writer
12 – I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning.
14 – …it is not our high purposes alone that make us moving creatures, but our humble needs and cravings…
16 – …I thought of the triumph it would be to kiss that face, and the excitement of her kissing me back.
20 – If your life consists of reading and writing and looking at the snow, you’ll wind up like me. Fantasy for thirty years.
25 – Don’t apologize… unless you know for sure you’re not going to do it again next time. Otherwise, just do it and forget it. Don’t make a production out of it.
26 – Because you happen to be a writer doesn’t mean you have to deny yourself the ordinary human pleasure of being praised and applauded.
27 – I cannot take any more moral fiber in the face of life’s disappointments.
milou new year’s day hangover
so milou had a new year’s day hangover.
playing with him in the morning just after breakfast, i grabbed the lower part of his body and lifted him up.
what a stupid idea.
he puked out half of his undigested breakfast.
not a pretty sight.
i am like the world’s worst dog-owner.
Danny Boyle
To be a film-maker, you have to lead – you have to be psychotic in your desire to do something. People always like the easy route. You have to push very hard to get something unusual, to get something different… you have to be almost psychotic to do that.
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