“Talk less. Smile more.”
― Hamilton: The Revolution
― Hamilton: The Revolution
“When the surface of your soul begins to stir, I imagine you want to capture the sensation in writing.” - Yoko Ogawa”
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“Don’t you sometimes find daily life almost unbearably poetic? Minute curiosity is a requirement of the travel writer – as it is of the biographer, novelist and poet. The significance of the trivial is what makes a piece of travel writing human, not the stuntish business of being the first person to paddle the Congo. Out there on the road, I have often found that the most aimless and boring interludes yield, in the long run, the most fertile material.”
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“Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. This is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?
Write about winter in the summer. Describe Norway as Ibsen did, from a desk in Italy; describe Dublin as James Joyce did, from a desk in Paris. Willa Cather wrote her prairie novels in New York City; Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn in Hartford, Connecticut. Recently, scholars learned that Walt Whitman rarely left his room.”
― The Writing Life
Write about winter in the summer. Describe Norway as Ibsen did, from a desk in Italy; describe Dublin as James Joyce did, from a desk in Paris. Willa Cather wrote her prairie novels in New York City; Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn in Hartford, Connecticut. Recently, scholars learned that Walt Whitman rarely left his room.”
― The Writing Life
“Quick now, give up this idle pondering!
And let’s be off into the great wide world!
I tell you: the fool who speculates on things
is like some animal on a dry heath,
led by an evil fiend in endless circles,
while fine green pastures lie on every side.”
― Territory of Light
And let’s be off into the great wide world!
I tell you: the fool who speculates on things
is like some animal on a dry heath,
led by an evil fiend in endless circles,
while fine green pastures lie on every side.”
― Territory of Light
Zander’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Zander’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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Favorite Genres
Art, Business, Classics, Contemporary, Fiction, Humor and Comedy, Non-fiction, Poetry, Psychology, Romance, Sports, and Thriller
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