Rēad, Rĕad, Rad.

I used to spend the evenings, depending on how the day went, either congratulating or beating myself up. It took me a long time to understand that both are just as narcissistic and just as useless, not only because the work is not responsible for my mood, but also because both conclusions steal the wind from my sails and leave me exhausted either from self-loathing or jubilation. Now I close the door and return to my life a little tired but also with that modest contentment and gratitude of those who enjoy their work.

Important thing is not the me that's lying here, but the me that's sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me that's downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count. I'm not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family.

Ahead is also behind--the past is in the future when we talk, you see, since there can be no other way for stories to be told. So please wait for yesterday in some case slowly to come.

If I had known that it would take me 17 years to finish that collection, and three more years to publish it, perhaps I never would have even begun. But ignorance can sometimes — not always, but sometimes — be as beneficial as knowledge. Ignorance is beneficial when we are aware of it.

...[Zinn] reminded us of the history of social change in this country, and kept coming back to his core ideas: that change comes from below; that progress comes only from people resisting and organizing--workers going on strike; consumers boycotting; soldiers refusing to fight, saying 'no' to injustice and war; that we cannot rely on elected officials or leaders but instead have to rely on our individual and collective actions; that change never happens in a straight line but always has ups and downs, twists and turns; and that there are no guarantees in history.

As revolutionaries well know, if you want to change the mentality of a country, you don't head to the art gallery, the department of education or the homes of famous novelists; you drive the tanks straight to the nerve centre of the body politic, the news HQ.