
“Starting out, I imagined a straightforward book in three parts, moving along a taut narrative path with a sturdy foundation of clay undergirding all. Books have their own fates, however, and research—at least the kind of research that I practice—yields to serendipity. If the destination is known beforehand, what’s the point of the journey? A provisional map of the whole allows the woolgathering pilgrim to get a little lost along the way without losing his bearings completely. Meanwhile, coincidences and chance meetings confirm a certain rightness, a fit, in the meandering quest.”
Christopher Benfey
more infosource: Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay: Reflections on Art, Family, and Survival (New York: The Penguin press, 2012), 15.
category: book, coincidence, creative process, journey, map, quest, research, serendipity, unknown, wandering, writing
medium: Memoir
“I feel, sometimes, like I have a map in my pocket that folds up, and I pull it out, and it’s bigger than the table, and there’s a thousand places to go with her.”
Tom Waits
more infosource: Interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, NPR, October 31, 2011. [full transcript here]
category: creative process, love, map, marriage, romance, travel
medium: Interview
“I would like my personal reading map to resemble a map of the British Empire circa 1900; I’d like people to look at it and think, How the hell did he end up right over there?”
Nick Hornby
more infosource: “May 2005,” in Housekeeping Vs. The Dirt (San Francisco, CA: Believer Books, 2006), 51.
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category: book, England, map, reading
medium: Essay
“Prominent among the curses of civilization is the map that folds up ‘convenient for the pocket.’ There are men who can do almost everything except shut a map. It is calculated that the energy wasted yearly in denouncing these maps to their face would build the Eiffel Tower in thirteen weeks.”
J. M. Barrie
more infosource: “Shutting a Map,” in A Tillyloss Scandal (New York: Lovell, Coryell & Co., 1893), 207.
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category: curse, frustration, map
medium: Nonfiction
“Following straight lines shortens distances, and also life.”
Antonio Porchia
more infosource: Voices: Aphorisms, selected and translated by W. S. Merwin (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), 16.
category: advice, distance, keys to life, life, line, map, straight
medium: aphorism
“CAUTION: As the buoys marking the shoals are often out of position, mariners are cautioned to be on their guard when navigating these shores.”
Anonymous
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