The largest website for English phrases and quotes

The largest website for English phrases and quotes

Category: Dani Shapiro

Rather than feeling vindicated, I felt guilty. It seemed cruel, and all my fault, somehow. My relationship with my mother had always brought into question any sense I had of myself as a good and decent person. [p. 128]

Gone was the reflexive need to see the worst in things. Before the tumors took her life, they gave her a few moments of grace.

I had no illusions that now, in some final and dramatic flash of revelation, we would understand one another. We were done. It was a fact of my life–intractable and sad–that our relationship had been a failure. Still, with her prognosis came one last chance to be her daughter. [p. 163]

When I think of the wisest people I know, they share one defining trait: curiosity. They turn away from the minutiae of their lives-and focus on the world around them. They are motivated by the desire to explore the unfamiliar. They are drawn toward what they don’t understand.

art, artist, curiosity, writing, writing-advice

In order to write a memoir, I’ve sat still inside the swirling vortex of my own complicated history like a piece of old driftwood, battered by the sea. I’ve waited—sometimes patiently, sometimes in despair—for the story under pressure of concealment to reveal itself to me. I’ve been doing this work long enough to know that our feelings—that vast range of fear, joy, grief, sorrow, rage, you name it—are incoherent in the immediacy of the moment. It is only with distance that we are able to turn our powers of observation on ourselves, thus fashioning stories in which we are characters

This sadness wasn’t a huge part of me–I wasn’t remotely depressed–but still, it was like a stone I carried in my pocket. I always knew it was there. [p. 179]

To forget oneself-to lose oneself in the music, in the moment- that kind of absorption seems to be at the heart of every creative endeavor.

creativity, music, writer, writing-advice

Years vanish. Months collapse. Time is like a tall building made of playing cards. It seems orderly until a strong gust of wind comes along and blows the whole thing skyward. Imagine it: an entire deck of cards soaring like a flock of birds.

change, fragility-of-life, life, time

It wasn’t so much that I was in search of answers. In fact, I was wary of the whole idea of answers. I wanted to climb all the way inside of the questions and see what was there.

answers, desire-for-knowledge, knowledge, questions, searching, searching-for-answers

I believe that there is something connecting us … Something that was here before we got here and will still be here after we’re gone. I’ve begun to believe that all of our consciousnesses are bound up in that greater consciousness. …An animating presence …. [pp. 205-206]

This sadness wasn’t a huge part of me–I wasn’t remotely depressed–but still, it was like a stone I carried in my pocket. I always knew it was there. [p. 179]

To forget oneself-to lose oneself in the music, in the moment- that kind of absorption seems to be at the heart of every creative endeavor.

creativity, music, writer, writing-advice