Alissa Butterworth
  • About
  • Writing
  • The Common Place
  • The Home Writer's Retreat
  • Contact
  • HWR Non-Required Reading
  • Links

Sunday

11/2/2014

 
I could wake her up and ask have you ever been to the ocean? but I already know that answer. She has not. You can tell. It would humble you I whisper to her sleeping if you for one time stood by something stronger than yourself.
--Kaye Gibbons, Ellen Foster

First you try to find a reason, try to understand what you've done so wrong so you can be sure not to do it anymore. After that you look for signs of a Jekyll and Hyde situation, the good and the bad in a person sifted into separate compartments by some weird accident. Then, gradually, you realize that there isn't a reason, and it isn't two people you're dealing with, just one. The same one every time.
--Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird

We begin with the trouble, but where does the trouble begin?
--Kyle Minor, Praying Drunk

But it's a curse, a condemnation, like an act of provocation, to have been aroused from not being, to have been conjured up from a clot of dirt and hay and lit on fire and sent stumbling among the rocks and bones of this ruthless earth to weep and worry and wreak havoc and ponder little more than the impending return to oblivion, to invent hopes that are as elaborate as they are fraudulent and poorly constructed, and that burn off the moment they are dedicated, if not before, and are at best only true as we invent them for ourselves or tell them to others, around a fire, in a hovel, while we all freeze or starve or plot or contemplate treachery or betrayal or murder or despair of love, or make daughters and elaborately rejoice in them so that when they are cut down even more despair can be wrung from our hearts, which prove only to have been made for the purpose of being broken. And worse still, because broken hearts continue beating.
--Paul Harding, Enon

We need to develop a better descriptive vocabulary for lying, a taxonomy, a way to distinguish intentional lies from unintentional ones, and a way to distinguish the lies that the liar himself believes in – a way to signal those lies that could be more accurately described as dreams. Lies – they make for a tidy little psychological Doppler effect, tell us more about a liar than an undistorted self-report ever could.
--Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

Comments are closed.

    Alissa B.

    Nothing commonplace about The Common Place.

    Archives

    April 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2011

    Categories

    All
    A. E Housman
    Alan Paton
    Aldous Huxley
    Algernon Blackwood
    Alice Munro
    Alice Sebold
    Alice Walker
    Ann Brashares
    Anthony Doerr
    Anton Chekhov
    Arthur Golden
    Arthur Miller
    Arthur T. Vanderbilt II
    As I Lay Dying
    Audrey Niffenegger
    Betty Smith
    Blog
    Bob Hicok
    Carson McCullers
    Carsten Jensen
    Character
    Charles Portis
    Chris Adrian
    Christopher Moore
    Chuck Palahniuk
    Cormac McCarthy
    C. S. Lewis
    Daniel Woodrell
    Daphne Du Maurier
    Dave Eggers
    David McCullough
    Dodie Smith
    Donna Tartt
    Eimear McBride
    Erik Larson
    Evelyn Waugh
    Ford Madox Ford
    Frank McCourt
    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    George Orwell
    Glen Duncan
    Harper Lee
    Hart Crane
    Henry David Thoreau
    Henry Roth
    Hilary Mantel
    Iain Banks
    Italo Calvino
    Jack Gilbert
    Jack Kerouac
    Jackson
    James Frey
    James Joyce
    Janet Malcolm
    Jason Mott
    J. D. Salinger
    Jeannette Walls
    Jeffrey Eugenides
    Jeff VanderMeer
    Jennifer Egan
    Jennifer Percy
    John Irving
    John Steinbeck
    Jonathan Franzen
    Jon Krakauer
    Jon McGregor
    Joseph Heller
    Jose Saramago
    Julia Alvarez
    Karen Russell
    Kate Atkinson
    Kathryn Stockett
    Kaui Hart Hemmings
    Ken Kesey
    Kevin Wilson
    Kurt Vonnegut
    Larry McMurtry
    Laura Ingalls Wilder
    Lee Martin
    Louisa May Alcott
    Lynda Barry
    Margaret Atwood
    Margaret Mitchell
    Marilynne Robinson
    Mark Haddon
    Mark Van Doren
    Michael Crummey
    Michael Cunningham
    Michael Ondaatje
    Mikal Gilmore
    Molly Caldwell Crosby
    Music
    Narrative
    Nathaniel Philbrick
    Neil Gaiman
    Neil Gaimen
    Nikos Kazantzakis
    Norman Mailer
    Novel
    Pat Conroy
    Paul Harding
    Perspective
    Philip Pullman
    Possession
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
    Ransom Riggs
    Ray Bradbury
    Raymond Chandler
    Richard Wright
    Rilke
    Robert Hicks
    Robert Penn Warren
    Ron Hansen
    Rumi
    Salman Rushdie
    Sherman Alexie
    Smith Henderson
    Soundtrack
    Stephen Crane
    Stephen Dobyns
    Stephen King
    Steven Naifeh
    Susanna Clarke
    Sylvia Plath
    Tennessee Williams
    Terri Pratchett
    Theme
    Theodore Dreiser
    Thomas Hardy
    Thomas Pynchon
    Thomas Wolfe
    T. H. White
    Tim O'Brien
    Tom Robbins
    Tom Stoppard
    Toni Morrison
    Truman Capote
    Virginia Woolf
    Vladimir Nabokov
    Walt Whitman
    William Blake
    William Faulkner
    William Golding
    William Shakespeare
    William Styron
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.