Sheer Playfulness and Deadly Seriousness are my closest friends.
From Philip Roth
Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline.
Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.
Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.
Obviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is formed by your previous experience. Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.
All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.
Writing is frustration - it's daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It's just like baseball: you fail two-thirds of the time.
The novelist's obsession, moment by moment, is with language: finding the right next word.
Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?
People are unjust to anger - it can be enlivening and a lot of fun.
3 perspectives
1 perspectives