She was very pretty, and the most important thing — all my life — was the fact that she was very smart. What T&A do for most men, brains do for me. I’m addicted to intelligent women, I married intelligent women.
That’s all, really, I remember. I think she was very smart, very sensitive, and funny. I also enjoy a sense of humor in women. But she was primarily very intelligent, very smart, very sensitive, and that was really unique among all the girls that I knew.
I wouldn’t say she was a raging beauty, but she had a brain that was just most charming and insightful. And I fell in love with her. What’s a 14-year-old boy to do?
An interview with Thom Steinbeck (via The Hairpin)
I can hope, I can daydream, but certainly think that the chances of me being read 50 years from now or 100 years from now are probably not good. That cannot be your only end. You cannot write to be immortal because you will never know. It’s impossible. Just write as well as you can and don’t speculate about whether you will be Chaucer or Shakespeare.
writer Donald Hall on NPR’s Fresh Air (via forwhenifeellikesharing)
I tell them, “I write this shit for you!” But a lot of writers won’t admit to that, a lot of artists won’t admit to that. They’ll get artistic, or pretentious, or, you know, talk about some “higher calling.” The fact is, I want to move rooms full of people. I want to move someone sitting alone under a reading lamp. I want to move someone sitting on a beach. I want to make them laugh and cry. I want them to see me and come running up to me and tell me how the books made them feel. I love that!
…The type of loneliness where you need to keep struggling to accept a situation is fundamentally different than the sort you know you’ll get through if you just hang in there.
Ryū Murakami - In the Miso Soup
At some point you’re going to have to come to terms with who you are, however unpleasant, if you’re going to be anything at all.
Anita Brookner
