Sketchbook

"A friendship breakup, after all, can be just as exquisitely painful as a romantic one — and..."

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:00:16 -0400

“A friendship breakup, after all, can be just as exquisitely painful as a romantic one — and sometimes it’s worse. “There’s no words for it, no songs written about it. You can’t even explain to yourself what’s going on or why you feel so bad,” Gerwig says. “I think in your late 20s you go through this realization that your friends are not your family and they don’t owe you the things that your family owes you.””

- Entertainment Weekly, May 17, 2013

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:00:10 -0400

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

- Perks of Being a Wallflower

Making It Last - The New York Times

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:00:16 -0400

Making It Last - The New York Times:

A collection of “Making It Last” columns from The New York Times.

"Women denied abortion were three times as likely to end up below the federal poverty line two years..."

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 18:52:22 -0400

“Women denied abortion were three times as likely to end up below the federal poverty line two years later.”

- New York Times

"A person willing to trade intellectual integrity for recognition is not approaching their creativity..."

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:53:02 -0400

“A person willing to trade intellectual integrity for recognition is not approaching their creativity as a business.”

- Maya Francis

"A good conversation is an interesting thing; it can’t be a solely individual endeavor—it has to be a..."

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 19:32:13 -0400

“A good conversation is an interesting thing; it can’t be a solely individual endeavor—it has to be a group effort. Each individual has to sacrifice a little for the benefit of the group as a whole and ultimately, to increase the pleasure each individual receives. It’s like a song where the rhythm is paramount, and each person in the group must contribute to keeping that rhythm going. One person who keeps on playing a sour note can throw the whole thing off.”

- The Art of Conversation

"She would be accused of being a sybarite if it weren’t for the conceptual rigor she applies to her..."

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 09:06:31 -0400

“She would be accused of being a sybarite if it weren’t for the conceptual rigor she applies to her aesthetics”

- New York Times Magazine

"The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and..."

Thu, 30 May 2013 10:22:39 -0400

“The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist.”

- Fatal Distraction, Washington Post

"Bitterness is really just amplified self-pity. And no one wants to be around that."

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:00:21 -0400

“Bitterness is really just amplified self-pity. And no one wants to be around that.”

- Marc Maron, Rolling Stone May 23, 2013

"Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers."

Sun, 05 May 2013 13:00:21 -0400

“Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.”

- Mary Oliver

“Kya kare kya na kare yeh kaise mushkil hai?”

Sat, 04 May 2013 13:00:20 -0400

“Kya kare kya na kare yeh kaise mushkil hai?”

"Speech conquers thought, but writing commands it."

Fri, 03 May 2013 13:00:13 -0400

“Speech conquers thought, but writing commands it.”

- Walter Benjamin

"But everything matters. Everything is our lives is who we are."

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:08:20 -0400

“But everything matters. Everything is our lives is who we are.”

- Penelope Trunk

"Friendship and romance are the realm of anarchy."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:30:38 -0400

“Friendship and romance are the realm of anarchy.”

- Cary Tennis

"Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall your poverty..."

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 23:56:03 -0400

“Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall your poverty come as one that travels, and your want as an armed man.”

- Proverbs 6:10-11

"Zonka taught me his newspaper code, which he liked to express as, ‘When you have to march,..."

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:49:32 -0400

“Zonka taught me his newspaper code, which he liked to express as, ‘When you have to march, march.’ This included writing a story you lacked all enthusiasm for, meeting a deadline no matter what hours were necessary, getting an interview after you’d been decisively turned down, not falling in love with your deathless prose, remembering that you were there to write a story and not have a good time.”

- Roger Ebert

"Building a wedding — the bridal party, the families, the guests, the minister, writing the vows,..."

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:30:16 -0400

“Building a wedding — the bridal party, the families, the guests, the minister, writing the vows, selecting the food — is like a sculpture by Andy Goldsworthy. You’re trying to make something beautiful out of unruly and unpredictable elements — the weather, the nuttier relatives, rivalries, disorders, dreams. Out of mostly old neurotic family and friends, you hope to create something of beauty, a whole. You create it as an act of faith, that for a brief period of time, the love and commitment of two people will bring everyone together, and it will sort of work. Even if the weather or personalities are worrisome, these breezes and water will flow through the structure of your wedding, will sanctify and change it, and it will hold.”

- Anne Lamott

"There was another silence. I felt, above all, tired. Tiredness: if there was a constant symptom of..."

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 16:18:22 -0400

“There was another silence. I felt, above all, tired. Tiredness: if there was a constant symptom of the disease in our lives at this time, it was tiredness. At work we were unflagging; at home the smallest gesture of liveliness was beyond me. Mornings we awoke into a malign weariness that seemed only to have refreshed itself overnight. Evenings, after Jake had been put to bed, we quietly ate watercress and translucent noodles that neither of us could find the strength to remove from their cartoons; took turns to doze in the bathtub; and failed to stay awake for the duration of a TV show. Rachael was tired and I was tired. A banal state of affairs, yes — but our problems were banal, the stuff of women’s magazine’s. All lives, I remember thinking, eventually funnel into the advice columns of women’s magazines.”

- Netherland, Joseph O’Neill

"Cara’s rapist struck every person who ever loved her. Then he hurt every person who ever loved me...."

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:36:27 -0400

“Cara’s rapist struck every person who ever loved her. Then he hurt every person who ever loved me. It is stunning how far the grief of rape travels — across generations. Violent acts done to us affect our children not yet born.”

- Christa Parravani

"The leopard meets the tortoise on a lonely stretch of road. The leopard has been trying to catch the..."

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 13:40:18 -0400

“

The leopard meets the tortoise on a lonely stretch of road. The leopard has been trying to catch the tortoise for a long time. The tortoise is a trickster, and so obviously has been escaping. And then on this day the leopard finally catches up with him and says, ah-ha. You know, now I’ve got you. Prepare to die.

And tortoise says to leopard: Can I ask you one last favor? And the leopard says, yes, why not? And the tortoise says: Give me a short time to prepare myself for death. And the leopard looked around and said: I don’t see why not. Yes, go ahead. But then instead of standing still and thinking, as the leopard had expected, the tortoise began to dig and scatter sand all over the road, you know, throwing sand in all directions with his hands and feet.

And the leopard says: What’s going on? Why are you doing that? And the tortoise says: I’m doing this because after I am dead, I want anyone passing by this spot and seeing all this sign of struggle on the road to say: A man and his match struggled here.

And the moral of this is the importance of struggle, that we cannot - no one is going to guarantee us the outcome. Nobody’s going to say if you struggle, you will succeed. It would be too simple. But even if we are not sure how it is going to end, what success will attend our enterprise, we still have this obligation to struggle.

”

- Chinua Achebe