But I think there are a set of experiences that turn a potential writer into a working writer, and then there are places in your life were you start to recognize what you want to do.
I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody.
Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.
And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God's language - it's better, it's finer, it's language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives.
He had a massive stroke. He died with his tie on. Do you think that could be our generation's equivalent of that old saying about dying with your boots on?
You see something, then it clicks with something else, and it will make a story. But you never know when it's going to happen.
What charitable 1 percenters can't do is assume responsibility - America's national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts.
But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.
No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.
there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.Collection: Optimistic
Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.Collection: Hopeful
Time's the thief of memoryCollection: Memories
Nobody lives forever, but we all shine on.Collection: Shine On
The scariest moment is always just before you start.Collection: Travel
Do it for joy and you can do it foreverCollection: Joy
What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle.Collection: Smart
We lie best when we lie to ourselves.Collection: Liars
you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.Collection: Positive
The truth is in the details.Collection: Details
When facts speak, the wise man listens.Collection: Wise
Love isn't soft, like the poets say. Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close.Collection: Teeth
The most important things are the hardest to sayCollection: I Love You
The brain is a muscle that can move the world.Collection: Moving
But I believe in love, you know; love is a uniquely portable magic. I don’t think it’s in the stars, but I do believe that blood calls to blood and mind calls to mind and heart to heart.Collection: Life
When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.Collection: Writing
When all else fails, give up and go to the library.Collection: Giving Up
Sometimes when you're young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you're living on someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break into two.Collection: Growing Up
No good friends, no bad friends; only people you want, need to be with. People who build their houses in your heart.Collection: Fake People
Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.Collection: Inspirational
It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.Collection: Inspirational
Talent is a wonderful thing, but it won't carry a quitter.Collection: Motivational
If anyone ever asks you what panic is, now you can tell them: an emotional blank spot that leaves you feeling as if you've been sucking on a mouthful of pennies.Collection: Emotional
Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met at a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a room?...' You dare not.' And in the gunslinger's mind, those words echoed: You dare not.Collection: Reality
My friend wants to get moving and so do I,' Eddie said. 'We've got miles to go yet.' I know that. It's on your face, son. Like a scar.' Eddie was fascinated by the idea of duty and ka as something that left a mark, something that might look like decoration to one eye and disfigurement to another. Outside, thunder cracked and lightning flashed.Collection: Moving
I know I can do it," Todd Downey said, helping himself to another ear of corn from the steaming bowl. "I'm sure that in time her death will be a mystery, even to me.Collection: Ears
Every man or woman who loves Him, they hate Him too, because He's a hard God, a jealous God.Collection: Hate
Men who find themselves late are never sure. They are all the things the civics books tell us the good citizen should be: partisans but never zealots, respectors of the facts which attend each situation but never benders of those facts, uncomfortable in positions of leadership but rarely unable to turn down a responsibility once it has been offered . . . or thrust upon them. They make the best leaders in a democracy because they are unlikely to fall in love with power.Collection: Falling In Love
Women's lib, Frannie had decided, was nothing more nor less than an outgrowth of the technological society. Women were at the mercy of their bodies. They were smaller. They tended to be weaker. A man couldn't get with child, but a woman could---every four-year-old knows it. And a pregnant woman is a vulnerable human being. Civilization had provided an umbrella of sanity that both sexes could stand beneath.Collection: Sex
Rationalism is the idea that we can ever understand anything about the state of being. It's a deathtrip. It always has been. . . . And if rationalism is a deathtrip, then irrationalism might very well be a lifetrip . . . at least until it proves otherwise.Collection: Ideas
God doesn't bribe, child. He just makes a sign and lets people take it as they will.Collection: Children
He had been (Thinking? Praying?) It was all the same thing.Collection: Thinking
He pointed toward the silhouettes on the side of the [bathrooms] instead--black cutout man, black cutout woman. The man had his legs apart, the woman had hers together. Pretty much the story of the human race in sign language.Collection: Men
I just didn't want her to get hurt. I thought she was going to be. But everyone gets their share, don't they? Sure. Pow, in the nose. Pow, in the eye. Pow, below the belt, down you go, and the ref just went out for a hot dog.Collection: Dog
Make-up covers a multitude of sins.Collection: Sin
If I kept saying it; if I kept reaching out. My accident really taught me just one thing: the only way to go on is to go on. To say 'I can do this' even when you know you can't.Collection: Goes On
It was as hysterical as a woman having a hot flash.Collection: Hot Flashes
You cant be too careful on a skateboard.Collection: Careful
This inhuman place makes human monsters.Collection: Halloween
I was being paid to do what I loved, and there's no gig on earth better than that; it's like a license to steal.Collection: Earth