Interesting Things on The Internet

Stephen Sondheim replied right away. He offered love and sympathy — “and tea, if you want it.” His protégé’s predicament seemed totally understandable. “I don’t know why this hasn’t paralyzed you already,” he emailed back. “I’m sure it’s already occurred to you, but the simplest way is the best. Isolate yourself from everything but family and... See more

An all-time favorite phrase from Elena Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment , in that case used to describe a troubled marriage:

What a complex foamy mixture a couple is. Even if the relationship shatters and ends, it continues to act in secret pathways, it doesn’t die, it doesn’t want to die.

‘I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved, all the cities I have visited.’

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag — and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you... See more

Françoise Sagan’s Paris Review interview is worth reading in its entirety. I especially enjoyed this exchange:

Is it possible that novels get written because the novelist imagines himself in the role of a novelist writing a novel?

No, one assumes the role of hero and then seeks out “the novelist” who can write his story.

And one always finds the

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