LCR

“The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.”
― John Updike

“We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.”
― Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven: Poems

“We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.”
― Jack Gilbert, The Great Fires

“Everything in New York is a photograph. All the things that are supposed to be dirty or rough or unrefined are the most beautiful things. Garbage cans at the ends of alleyways look like they've been up all night talking with each other. Doorways with peeling paint look like the wise lines around an old feller's eyes. I stop and stare but can't stay because men always think I'm selling something. Or worse, giving something away. I wish I could be invisible. Or at least I wish I didn't look like someone they want to look at. They stop being part of the picture, they get up from their chess game and come out of the frame at me, blocking my view.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, Fall on Your Knees