21.8.11

The Holiday

"And then, there's another kind of love: the cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims. Its called unrequited love. Of that I am an expert. Most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other. But what about the rest of us? What about our stories, those of us who fall in love alone? We are the victims of the one sided affair. We are the cursed of the loved ones. We are the unloved ones, the walking wounded. The handicapped without the advantage of a great parking space!"

-Iris Simpkins
[Written by: Nancy Meyers]

14.8.11

The Poet's Notebook

"Will the computer ever replace the fetishism of the notebook? It's possible, but I doubt it. To hear the poets tell it, the small, handsome notebook and a special pen or pencil are half the work. They are an invitation to write in a certain way. They demand from us absolute conciseness, an aesthetic of modesty. If you write poems on the back of old envelopes and garage sale announcements, as I often do, you don't write epics."

Preface of The Poet's Notebook (xi, 1995)
Charles Simic