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1 " We didn’t see anyone that day. We had no expectations. Everything was spontaneous. There wasn’t a single moment of stress. We laughed like crazy all afternoon – though I couldn’t tell you what about. And there was definitely something in the air – call it magic if you like – because that was the happiest Christmas any of us could remember, which makes me think that perhaps, like luck, magic is something we can make for ourselves. It isn’t something you can buy. It doesn’t come as standard. And you don’t need to plan, or to overspend, or to wrack your brains trying to come up with some extraordinary way to celebrate. Because sometimes it’s the little things that bring us the greatest pleasure. "
― Joanne Harris
2 " There is, of course, always the personal satisfaction of writing down one's experiences so they may be saved, caught and pinned under glass, hoarded against the winter of forgetfulness. Time has been cheated a little, at least in one's own life, and a personal, trivial immortality of an old self assured. And there is another personal satisfaction: that of the people who like to recount their adventures, the diary-keepers, the story-tellers, the letter-writers, a strange race of people who feel half cheated of an experience unless it is retold. It does not really exist until it is put into words. As though a little doubting or dull, they could not see it until it is repeated. For, paradoxically enough, the more unreal an experience becomes - translated from real action into unreal words, dead symbols for life itself - the more vivid it grows. Not only does it seem more vivid, but its essential core becomes clearer. One says excitedly to an audience, 'Do you see - I can't tell you how strange it was - we all of us felt...' although actually, at the time of incident, one was not conscious of such a feeling, and only became so in the retelling. It is as inexplicable as looking all afternoon at a gray stone of a beach, and not realizing, until one tries to put it on canvas, that is in reality bright blue. "
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh , North to the Orient
3 " The most we can hope for when we write anything is dazzling imperfection. The least we can hope for is accolades from one or two people who don't know us. Spending all afternoon on " the right word" is probably foolish (though I've done it many times), but then again, it may not be. There may be people out there who'll read that nearly-perfect sentence (or paragraph), with its " right word," and they'll nod and smile and say to themselves, " Hey, that's not too bad. "
4 " I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home that answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog that growls every morning a parrot that swears all afternoon and a cat that comes home late at night. "
5 " I never married because I have three pets at home that answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog that growls every morning a parrot that swears all afternoon and a cat that comes home late at night. "
