“Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things—childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves—that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.” — Salman Rushdie, born today in 1947
“It’s an indication of our great fortune, our great decadence, or both, that when you type the word “viral” in a Google search bar, the first result isn’t an influenza or meningitis. It’s videos.” — Derek Thompson’s “The Secret of Viral Success is There Is No Secret of Viral Success,” at The Atlantic
“Libraries aren’t in the real world, after all. They’re places apart, sanctuaries of pure thought.” — Paul Auster (via picadorbookroom)
(Source: aseaofquotes, via openroadmedia)
On inspiration and the creative process.
“The muse won’t always cooperate and she will never be coerced. Sometimes she’d rather take a nap or see a mid-afternoon movie.” — Jonathan Tropper, “On Writing Without Writing”
Jay McInerney. Reading in a bathtub. Full of wine.
You’re welcome.
“Dear Harry, PLEASE sell this to The New Yorker as I am VERY VERY VERY poor … I STILL HAVE NO HOT WATER. I STILL HAVE NO HOT WATER. I shall go crazy.” —
W.H. Auden’s plea to an editor at The New Yorker, as recorded in his diary, which just sold at auction for $75,000
“The Kindle changed my reading habits, because I now buy books pretty much only when I’m drunk, and late at night.” — Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, to The Boston Globe