You Are What You Read

“Call it precious and go to hell, but I believe a story can be wrecked by a faulty rhythm in a sentence—especially if it occurs toward the end—or a mistake in paragraphing, even punctuation. Henry James is the maestro of the semicolon. Hemingway is a first-rate paragrapher. From the point of view of ear, Virginia Woolf never wrote a bad sentence. I don't mean to imply that I successfully practice what I preach. I try, that's all.”

Just in case you ever foolishly forget; I’m never not thinking of you.

It’s a writer’s job not just to write about himself but to look at the rest of humanity and explore it.

No, it’s never easier. The new book doesn’t know the first four were ever written.

Reading is socially accepted disassociation. You flip a switch and you’re not there anymore. It’s better than heroin. More effective and cheaper and legal.

Curiosity is human nature.

We don’t want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities of being have been opened to us. We don’t want to close a book with a sense that life is totally unfair and that there is no light in the darkness; we want to feel that we have been given illumination.

Even when we swear up and down that our friends are the most important people in our lives, it can be surprisingly difficult to prioritize platonic love. Of all the traditional milestones and events to celebrate them, precisely zero have to do with friendship. (Unless you count the bachelor/ette party, which, when you think about it, only celebrates friendship in relation to romantic love.) We talk ourselves in circles about the importance of work-life balance, but take it for granted that “life” is shorthand for “caring for a sick relative” or “taking the kids to soccer practice,” not “hours of deep conversation with a best friend.” This has real consequences. Need to work from home because your kid’s got the day off school? Fine. Need to leave work early because your good friend is going through a tough time and needs some one-on-one with you? Try getting that explanation past your boss.

It was decadent, yeah, it was quite decadent — but decadence is very enjoyable, isn’t it?