Emily Carney

“I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone.”
― John Cheever

“So it is that a writer writes many books. In each book, he intended several urgent and vivid points, many of which he sacrificed as the book's form hardened.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

“Readers are not sheep, and not every pen tempts them.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature

“For it is the role of the parent to express his concerns and then take three steps back. Not one, mind you, not two, but three. Or maybe four. (But by no means five.) Yes, a parent should share his hesitations and then take three or four steps back, so that the child can make a decision by herself—even when that decision may lead to disappointment.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow