Judy Nelson

“Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.”
― Raymond Carver, A New Path to the Waterfall

“Above all, in my anger, I was sad. Isn't that always the way, that at the heart of the fire is a frozen kernel of sorrow that the fire is trying -- valiantly, fruitlessly -- to eradicate.”
― Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs

“The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“When I am dead, I hope it may be said: "His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”
― Hilaire Belloc