I believe that fear of being a failure plays a large part in goading many women who are ambivalent about motherhood into maternity. That, and the fear of missing out,
Graffiti on Philosophy Hall: The examined life ain’t worth it either.
Are you a political prisoner, Dooley?Her blue eyes, immense now in her gaunt face, turned a pitying gaze on the reporter who'd asked her this. Yes, she said. And so are you.
Your whole house smells of dog, says someone who comes to visit. I say I'll take care of it. Which I do by never inviting that person to visit again.
There's a certain kind of person who, having read this far, is anxiously wondering: Does something bad happen to the dog?
The poet Rilke once reported seeing a dying dog give its mistress a look full of reproach. Later, he gave this experience to the narrator of a novel: He was convinced I could have prevented it. It was...
It is one of the great bafflements of student fiction. I have read that college students can spend up to ten hours a day on social media. But for the people they write about - also mostly college stud...
In a book I am reading the author talks about word people versus fist people. As if words could not also be fists. Aren't often fists.
If reading really does increase empathy, as we are constantly being told that it does, it appears that writing takes some away.
Consider rereading, how risky it is, especially when the book is one that you loved. Always the chance that it won't hold up, that you might, for whatever reason, not love it as much. When this happen...
Barbarity
You caught some flak for questioning whether there could really be such a thing as a flâneuse. You didn’t think it was possible for a woman to wander the streets in the same spirit and manner as a man...
Whenever he saw his books in a store, he felt like he’d gotten away with something, said John Updike. Who also expressed the opinion that a nice person wouldn’t become a writer. The problem of self-do...
Rather than, say, Toni Morrison, who called basing a character on a real person an infringement of copyright. A person owns his life, she says. It’s not for another to use it for fiction.
I’ve known plenty of women who brace themselves whenever they leave the house, even a few who try to avoid leaving the house. Of course, a woman has only to wait until she’s a certain age, when she be...
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring.
Idyllic is how Kundera describes human relationships with animals. Idyllic because animals were not expelled with us from Paradise. There they remain, untroubled by such complications as the separatio...
Beware irony, ignore criticism, look to what is simple, study the small and humble things of the world, do what is difficult precisely because it is difficult, do not search for answers but rather lov...
A poet announced to the workshop she was teaching that semester: I may not be here next week. Later, at home, she put on her mother’s old fur coat and, with a glass of vodka in hand, shut herself in h...
When did she plant the roses. In full magnificent bloom now, the red and the white. A fragrance to make you go, Aaah. I think how much they must have pleased her, year after year, and made her proud....