Quotes from Winter’s Tale

I’d call it the Quote of the Day, but I have two, both from Mark Helprin and Winter’s Tale:

“Peter Lake had no illusions about mortality. He knew that it made everyone perfectly equal, and that the treasures of the earth were movement, courage, laughter, and love. The wealthy could not buy these things. On the contrary, they were for the taking.”

“Winter then in its early and clear stages, was a purifying engine that ran unhindered over city and country, alerting the stars to sparkle violently and shower their silver light into the arms of bare upreaching trees. It was a mad and beautiful thing that scoured raw the souls of animals and man, driving them before it until they loved to run. And what it did to Northern forests can hardly be described, considering that it iced the branches of the sycamores on Chrystie Street and swept them back and forth until they rang like ranks of bells.”

IT FOLLOWED ME HOME. CAN I KEEP IT?

“The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If the stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other’s memory.”

Barry Lopez

So many story ideas, so little time…

If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.

~ Toni Morrison

I think about this every time I get a new story idea. NOBODY is going to write that story but me. Nobody else could.

Like father, like son?

How did Ben keep a straight face when Luke said “I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father”?

“Well, maybe not JUST like your father, Luke. For REASONS.”

Say a Holy Yes

A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp’s half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer’s task to say, ‘It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a café when you can eat macrobiotic at home.’ Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist – the real truth of who we are.

~ Natalie Goldberg