A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
Quote
A kiss in the dark
A short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger.
Stephen King
Zadie Smith on Facebook
It feels important to remind ourselves, at this point, that Facebook, our new beloved interface with reality, was designed by a Harvard sophomore with a Harvard sophomore’s preoccupations. What is your relationship status? (Choose one. There can be only one answer. People need to know.) Do you have a “life”? (Prove it. Post pictures.) Do you like the right sort of things? (Make a list. Things to like will include: movies, music, books and television, but not architecture, ideas, or plants.) But here I fear I am becoming nostalgic. I am dreaming of a Web that caters to a kind of person who no longer exists. A private person, a person who is a mystery, to the world and—which is more important—to herself. Person as mystery: this idea of personhood is certainly changing, perhaps has already changed.
Hemingway: No rule on how to write
There’s no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly. Sometimes it’s like drilling rock and blasting it out with charges.
Ernest Hemingway
Arlo Guthrie: Songs are like fish
Songs are like fish. You just gotta have your line in the water. And it’s a bad idea to fish downstream from Bob Dylan.
Arlo Guthrie
Churchill: On risk
Play the game for more than you can afford to lose … only then will you learn the game.
Winston Churchill (via)
Quote of the Day
There is no dishonor in losing the race. There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose.
The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein (via)
Katherine Anne Porter: This thing between me and my writing
This thing between me and my writing is the strongest bond I have ever had — stronger than any bond or any engagement with any human being or with any other work I’ve ever done.