chronicles

I’m a geek. I’m a writer. I spent all of my time in my childhood obsessing about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who. I was alone, I was an outsider, what do you expect? I was that bullied kid at the back of the class weeping for loneliness. I don’t think, generally speaking, people become writers because they were the really good, really cool, attractive kid in class. I’ll be honest. This is our revenge for people who were much better looking and more popular than us. I was a bit like that, I suppose.

— Steven Moffat on his childhood. [complete interview here] (via nprfreshair)

But, outside of being a sweet little girl, she was awfully dumb and capable of doing horrible things.

— Kerouac

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.

—

Dumbledore

a good reminder

All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children…. I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can’t build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out.

— Anne Sexton

the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.

— Kerouac

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

— Oscar Wilde

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.

—

Jorge Luis Borges

It’s in my nature to be cynical, and I know that with all of my criticisms of cuddly She & Him or The Notebook (why, Gosling? You could’a had it all!), and even more so, with my apparent inability to connect with other human beings, you might not expect that I’m a romantic. And I’m not, because based on my experience, just about everything you hear is regurgitated, clichéd bullshit that makes you feel stupid in the end for believing it at all.

Sometimes, though—be it rarely—I read a passage that surprises me. A genuine thought that I actually gives me some hope for the prospect of affection (or even love) at all. Borges can do that. So can Neruda. Or Saint-Exupéry. And I suppose that’s the way it should be, because sincere words are more valuable when you have to dig for them.

You get old and realize that there are no answers, just stories.

— Garrison Keillor

Were they beautiful? We were all beautiful. We were in our twenties.

— Steve Martin