I found this quote by Amy Tan:
“I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.”
People ask if you are sad or tired. I could say yes to those but neither is quite right. I am worn down, like a stone in a river. I try to hold on, be stoic and strong but I'm eroding all the time.
I feel this way more often as I get older. None of us are getting any younger of course. But, I don't think we should have to feel worn down. Does it happen from others or do we do it to ourselves. I'm trying to figure that out for myself.
I found this quote on an old site by Laurie Pawlik. She writes about writing, relationships, travel and living in a camper van. I started reading that post, first.
Do you remember BookCrossing? It's been years since I last logged in. Funny that I was thinking of the book which I had last read the last time I was at the site. I couldn't remember the author or the title, but there it was, first on my profile page.
"Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack."
A friend who joined the site with me, Skye Truheart, I have not heard from for many years. Each time I find something, a link to her somewhere, like her old Blogger account, or now this, I try again to find her. No luck. I'm sure I had her name and address to send a Christmas card but I've lost it long ago. I'd like to find her and know she is doing ok.
This quote is about the break between having the dream and living with it. But, you can read so much into a few words.
I’m a fan of writer Ann Patchett, whose book, Truth and Beauty, is one of my favourites. This week, thanks to the website, Brain Pickings, I came across a fantastic Patchett quotation that hit very close to home, especially the last line:
“The journey from the head to hand is perilous and lined with bodies. It is the road on which nearly everyone who wants to write — and many of the people who do write — get lost… Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.”
The stark disappointment of words is something I know a little too much about. So often the idea in my head, which initially seems so good, falls apart once I begin to try to assemble the words on paper. Suddenly my remarkable idea becomes frustratingly ordinary.
Source: Lindy Mechefske
This quote makes me think about writers having to kill their babies. That was a quote I read about editing your writing. Your words and phrases being taken out of existence. Deleting unnecessary wordage. Editing.
But, I find in life, the idea of editing things or deleting them, or exterminating... there are lots of good words for it... is an important skill to have. All things but in moderation. If you can master that in life you will save yourself a lot of stress, have more space (physically and mentally) and save money too.
Of course, no one should literally kill babies, or other children. At least let them get to adulthood, or the age of 20, and be guilty of something on the extreme side, first. Its ok to be a little dramatic, just not too literal about it.
Peter Grant has a page of Great Science Fiction Quotes in his blog. I can't pick just one as a favourite. Here are some:
“There’s no real objection to escapism, in the right places… We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality… It’s a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can’t think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality.” – Arthur C Clarke
“Isn’t it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?”
“Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.” – Isaac Asimov
“Experience comes from doing, not from being told. Experiment and discover. Seek and find. It is not machinations of others that compel us to do so; it is our need to know. It is, in the end, the way we learn.” – Terry Brooks, The Talismans of Shannara
“A neat and orderly living space is the sign of a dangerously sick mind.” – Mercedes Lackey, The Black Gryphon
“Reality is the part that refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.” – Phillip K. Dick
I found a few others in my own searching:
"For me science fiction is a way of thinking, a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects". - Gene Roddenberry
"Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible." - Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone
"The mind is a strange and wonderful thing. I'm not sure it'll ever be able to figure itself out. Everything else maybe, from the atom to the universe, everything except itself." - "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956)