Brenda Lee

“Lastly, Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose by Mick Short, which is not designed to teach creative writing, but is one of the most useful books I’ve ever read. It picks apart literature to show how language is used in fiction to create certain effects.”
― Marianne Cronin, The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

“The days hardened like loaves: he ate them without appetite.”
― Colum McCann, Apeirogon

“Being open to possibility is being open to pain, failure, disappointment, so the temptation is to curl ourselves up like armadillos. And it is perfectly understandable.”
― Matt Haig, The Life Impossible

“The roads were still a slough, and he trod the soft mud as if it were quicksand pulling him under—yet the foliage was bold enough to pass for art, and the woods exuded the pleasant smell of wet leaves, such that the entire walk felt so refreshing he would’ve considered his arrival in town enough activity to turn around and go home if he’d had no obligations to attend to.”
― Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water