Archive for August, 2022

Quote of the day: LIFE

August 10, 2022

LIFE

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

–Maggie Smith, “Good Bones”

Quote of the day: LIBRARY

August 9, 2022

LIBRARY

How do you organize your books?

The usual way, I begin alphabetically. Then I’m flummoxed. First of all, I buy more books than I will ever read. I might dip into and out of them. The books outgrow their letter on the shelf. I start moving books to the next shelf; there’s no room. I stack them. I put nonfiction here, fiction there. Some writers do both. Together or apart? Together is auteur theory. The stacks get higher, I can’t see my books. As a kid-reader, I thought a library was the great thing to build in life. Now, unless you have a huge house with enormous rooms, this desire leads to mayhem and depression. Now, I give away books I didn’t particularly like or will never read again or can easily find. With digital, with online and actual libraries, do I need to keep so many books, though I have a small hoarder in me. Once, I believed, apart from my love of books, having a library meant I was intelligent, well read, etc. Now I know that is absurd. I will never ever part with many books. Maybe I’ll have them cremated with me.

–Lynne Tillman

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