Miranda July
Each couple's version of intimacy is so fascinating to me. A friend will tell me about her marriage, and I'll think, 'Yikes, they have horrible communication! They're going to get divorced!' And then I'll hear about them at another time and think, 'Wow, they love each other so much!'Collection: Communication
I think this is how life is. It's not a linear march through time; you revolve around the same old things as you age and acquire experiences.
I've been using the same 'I Ching' since I was teenager when it was given to me by a fellow teenager; it seems too late to change now. I don't use it often, but when I do, it really does help. You can fool yourself, but not the 'I Ching.'
I'm not a cinephile. My films don't reference films. I'm more interested in rhythm and feeling.
When I was very little, I probably wanted to be more normal. I probably wanted the Laura Ashley bedroom, and instead I got thrift-store everything.
We humans are here because nothing can be perfect. There always have to be some living things that are unsatisfied, itchy, trying too hard. If it was all just animals and rocks and lettuce, the gods wouldn't feel like they had enough to do.
I actually don't have a great surplus of ideas. Some evolve very slowly, over many years, but I sort of trust that all of the interesting ones will become something that I eventually end up doing.
I eat an egg every morning, and when I'm done, I almost always have the thought: 'There. Now even if I'm captured and starved, I'll be able to live off the protein of that egg for a while.'
An erratum is a correction inserted into a book after publication. It's a nice thing to collect because you can't go after them, you just come upon them. In 25 years I've only found about 12.
When I write, I wear earplugs. I don't want to be self-conscious. I don't want to be thinking about the fact that I'm thinking about it. I just want to be in it. It's one element of hypnosis.
My earliest memory is aged three, seeing sunlight on water and feeling it was really magical.
I spend a lot of time obsessing about getting a dignified eight hours' sleep.
I didn't have any vices before the Internet. There are a lot of cracks in the day, moments where you don't know what to do next, so you have a little hole where you look at your phone. You want something that will mean you're not alone in that moment.
My job is to have new ideas and take risks every day, so I'm always looking forward to the next thing being done or making the next thing that I haven't yet gotten to. That's sort of the constant in my life.
Long before I started to write in earnest, Lorrie Moore taught me you could have a woman narrator who was funny and complex and even wrongheaded. She opened up a lot of space that me and a million other women rushed into.
There's no law against asking strangers about their lives and feelings, although sometimes it really feels like there is.
I am a big fan of work in any medium that can take on death - being dead, being a soul - in a new way.
I prefer a great novel, but many novels come with a bunch of novel-y writerliness that feels sort of macho to me, so I do end up reading lots of shorter things.
I know I'm going to lose a lot of readers over this, and I don't care: 'Garfield' is overrated. I have always felt this, even as a child. That dumb man and his dumb, mean cat have gotten more of our attention than they deserve.
The moment I feel pressure to read a book, I instinctively rebel against it - which is probably one reason I didn't last long in college.
I'm not embarrassed about not having read any book.
Women writers are often conflated with their narrators - as if we can't consciously construct fictional worlds from the ground up and can only write diary entries.
I'm often drawn in by a description of a woman thinking something familiar that's never been articulated before, as in Diane Cook's 'Somebody's Baby' or Nina Berberova's 'The Tattered Cloak.'
When I had a baby, I was consumed with my body.
It's amazing how little you can see people but still stay in regular contact.
I have a big brother who would make dolls' houses and playhouses and furniture out of wood. He was the one who taught me from such a young age that you could just make something. The physical act of gluing something together was really formative for me.
I've always had a dog phobia.
I have female friends who work in all different mediums who I speak to at least once a week. It helps me so much to know that I'm not alone. I think that's the bare minimum you need to sustain yourself - some sort of context of other women making things.
My husband and I are two people who never thought we'd be married.
I'm the kind of person who is always thinking, 'What if we had to spend the rest of our lives in a particular place?'
My love for my son just destroys me. I can barely even talk about it.
I just happen to be from the generation that, like a lot of my older friends, started out writing letters.
As a young artist working in multiple mediums, the work and especially the writings of artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy were very important to me.
Louise Bonnet is a Los Angeles-based painter of round, fleshy, almost obscene shapes and people. But hers is a very clean, friendly cartoon world, so there's this tension between harmlessness and perversion that is totally unsettling.
I'm quite a cerebral person. Often I feel quite stuck in that.
I feel like my only safety is in being totally true to myself.
Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I’ve never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.Collection: Thinking
The things keeping you back-these embarrassing, boring, stupid obstacles-are the heart of what it is to be human. They’re the whole reason for making and needing art. So you might as well go ahead and begin in whatever way you can right now.Collection: Art
If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have?Collection: Letting Go
Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it's worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.Collection: Morning
I knew the beginning and the end – I just had to dream up a convincing middle.Collection: Dream
That's the artist's job, really: continually setting yourself free, and giving yourself new options and new ways of thinking about things.Collection: Jobs
I had a joint once and I didn't feel right for a whole yearCollection: Years
Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can't see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.Collection: Friendship
Don't wait to be sure. Move, move, move.Collection: Moving
That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it.Collection: Dream
Inelegantly, and without my consent, time passed.Collection: Consent
I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.Collection: Said Life
What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real.Collection: Life
Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you.Collection: Fire