Rob Tourtelot
- “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or... See more
from No Part Of Yourself Is Unworthy.
- FEH, my newest memoir (more details about that soon), began with my wanting to write about the rampant judgementalism and sneering contempt I was seeing all around me. It takes on God, Jesus, Paul Rudd, Nextdoor, social media, Schopenhauer, Wolf Blitzer and Yuval Noah Harari. And even with all those sacred cows, it felt bland... until I decided to ... See more
from Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers
- The most sacred cows are the ones that are sacred to ourselves.
That’s the catch.
As I got older, I realized that the books that stuck with me for decades where the ones in which the writer held a mirror up to himself - his shame, his self-loathing, his prejudice, his hatred, his fear, his anxiety - all that sacred stuff we don't want to admit we fee... See morefrom Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers
- Much as working with a piano teacher is not, fundamentally, about learning songs, but about using songs to push yourself; I now think of our projects, not as ends in themselves, but as means to help us improve the underlying process and ourselves. This helps put me in the right frame of mind. I want this essay to turn out well, of course. But the g... See more
from On limitations that hide in your blindspot
- When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.
Jiddu Krishnamurtifrom Just a moment...
- if I tell exactly the story I’ve set out to tell, I’ve failed. The truer story exists somewhere outside the margins of consciousness. Writing constraints help us discover the truth rather than recite it.
from The One (and Only) Technique That Finally Helped Me Write About Trauma
- Writing doesn’t just change the way we understand our lives or the world. It changes us. Sometimes, it saves us.
from Dear Scared to Feel Too Much: Sometimes, Writing Saves Us
- The significant story possesses more awareness than the writer writing it. The significant story is always greater than the writer writing it. This is the absurdity, the disorienting truth, the question that is not even a question, this is the koan of writing.
from Joy Williams on Why Writers Write
- I find great value in the spaces between us, when we enter those spaces with curiosity and respect and love.
from "The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something keenly alive on the desert even though it is vast and empty and untouchable—and knows no kindness with all...