Rob Tourtelot

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which... See more

It’s easier to recognize beauty than it is to create it. You’re good enough to know that what you’re doing isn’t good, but not good enough to produce something great. When you find yourself in this frustrating limbo, the challenge is to never forget what got you there in the first place. Remember that thing that got you into the game.

Your love.... See more

And I don’t think this situation resolves itself as you grow older. In fact, more people just die. Loss becomes the primary condition of living. That doesn’t mean you’re in a hopeless, grief-stricken state all the time; it just means that you carry a deeper understanding of what it is to be human.

Imagine that you're passing a lazy afternoon at a sidewalk café on a mild spring day, sipping your drink, chatting with a couple of friends, and watching the cars go by. That's easy. In fact, it's effort-less: the cars just go wherever they go, and you're happily unem-ployed. But now suppose that for some reason you suddenly fall under the delusion

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