way of living

No one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not.

sally rooney, normal people

You must understand that your pain is trivial except insofar as you can use it to connect with other people’s pain; and insofar as you can do that with your pain, you can be released from it, and then hopefully it works the other way around too; insofar as I can tell you what it is to suffer, perhaps I can help you to suffer less

James Baldwin, The

sontag: I’m glad to be free of the kind of one-note depressiveness that is so characteristic of contemporary fiction. I don’t want to express alienation. It isn’t what I feel. I’m interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up.

Another thing I’ve learned: if you already have a lot, there’s always space for more. When you fall back in love with the world, you’re left with hunger.

I’ve stayed with the beauty of what’s little a lot⁠—seeing the way little nonbullies survive, with ingenuity and by taking their weakness and making it into a strength.

Fanny Howe, The Paris Review

sontag on how to start writing: Reading—which is rarely related to what I’m writing, or hoping to write. I read a lot of art history, architectural history, musicology, academic books on many subjects. And poetry. Getting started is partly stalling, stalling by way of reading and of listening to music, which energizes me and also makes me restless.