Quotenik

quotenik.com/Waits/avoid-old-habits

Tom Waits — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:42:52 +0000

“It’s very hard to stop doing things you’re used to doing. You almost have to dismantle yourself and scatter it all around and then put a blindfold on and put it back together so that you avoid old habits.”

The-Last-Life/Claire-Messud

Sara Bader — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:56:47 +0000

The Last Life

quotenik.com/2013/10/05/new-tricks

Tibor Kalman — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:40:33 +0000

“Everyone complains that it has all been done before, but we haven’t even begun. There’s an incredible amount of new tricks up good people’s sleeves.”

Jamie-Quatro/I-Want-to-Show-You-More

Sara Bader — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:05:20 +0000

I Want to Show You More

quotenik.com/2013/07/05/stays-behind-is-the-work

Michael Bierut — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:02:21 +0000

“I have a bunch of calendars I used before I went digital. Every once in a while, I’ll open up one from 1991 and look at all the names and appointments and things that, at the time, seemed so important. Meetings that I was really worried about, things that I was getting calls four times a day about, and I wonder, ‘Where did it all go? Where are they now?’ It’s so strange, everything has disappeared. The only thing that stays behind is the work.”

quotenik.com/2013/06/05/take-things-away

Frank Chimero — Mon, 06 May 2013 22:03:49 +0000

“Take things away until you cry.”

The-Noiseless-Tenor

Sara Bader — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 01:11:24 +0000

The Noiseless Tenor: The Bicycle in Literature

quotenik.com/2013/04/29/bicycle

William Saroyan — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 01:08:57 +0000

“You get on this simple machine, you hold the handlebars, you press down on the pedals with your feet, and you go. That’s what you do, and to a boy of eight or nine, going is the thing, going is living. It is experience, art, observation. It is even religion, even if you are an atheist or think you are. As for myself, I have never had any impulse to confine myself to any such theory of disbelief. I am a believer, and my faith is enlarged by the awesome reality of the bicycle, and by the meaning of ownership and usage of the contraption, or marvel.”

quotenik.com/2013/04/26/words-in-boxes

John McPhee — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:54:00 +0000

“It is toward the end of the second draft, if I’m lucky, when the feeling comes over me that I have something I want to show to other people, something that seems to be working and is not going to go away. The feeling is more than welcome, yes, but it is hardly euphoria. It’s just a new lease on life, a sense that I’m going to survive until the middle of next month. After reading the second draft aloud, and going through the piece for the third time (removing the tin horns and radio static that I heard while reading), I enclose things in boxes for Draft No. 4. If I enjoy anything in this process it is Draft No. 4. I go searching for replacements for the words in the boxes. The final adjustments may be small-scale, but they are large to me, and I love addressing them.”

Words in Boxes

Sara Bader — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:49:21 +0000

—John McPhee, “Draft No. 4: Replacing the Words in Boxes,” New Yorker, April 29, 2013.

quotenik.com/2013/04/26/copy-editors

John McPhee — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:44:06 +0000

“Copy editors attend the flow of the prose and watch for the leaks.”

quotenik.com/2013/04/21/intrusions-of-beauty

Saul Bellow — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:35:08 +0000

“Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.”

quotenik.com/2013/04/20/look-after-bear

Michael Bond — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:24:50 +0000

Please look after this bear. Thank you.

quotenik.com/2013/16/04/we-will-run

Dave Zirin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 03:54:18 +0000

“We will run next year because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.”

quotenik.com/2013/15/04/breakfast

A. A. Milne — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 03:46:51 +0000

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”
    “What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”
    “I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.
    Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
    “It’s the same thing,” he said.