OffBeatBooks

“That was the problem with coming home: you also had to come to the self which resided there.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“I am staring out of the window in an extremely dark mood, feeling helpless. Then a friend, a fellow artist, calls... he asks, ‘How are you?' and instead of ‘Oh, fine... and you?', I blurt out the truth: ‘Not well. Not only am I depressed, I can’t seem to work, to write; it’s as though I am paralyzed, unable to write anything... I’ve never felt this way before…' I am about to explain with further detail when he interrupts, shouting: ‘No! No, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work... not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job.' I felt foolish the rest of the morning, especially when I recalled the artists who had done their work in gulags, prison cells, hospital beds; who did their work while hounded, exiled, reviled, pilloried. And those who were executed... this is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
― Toni Morrison

“How strange is our mortal zest for fame. Perhaps it is the only way humans can be gods. We achieve immortality not through ambrosia and ichor but through history and reputation. Through statues and epic song”
― Stephen Fry, Troy

“That you had more hidden away inside you than anyone else she’d ever met.”
― Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet