John McPhee, the great American factual writer (he doesn’t like the word nonfiction: “nonfiction — what the hell, that just says, this is nongrapefruit we’re having this morning. It doesn’t mean anything. You had nongrapefruit for breakfast; think how much you know about that breakfast”) on why writing is hard but not writing is impossible:… [Read more…]
March 16, 2012
Love this: Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort. More great life/creative ideas at the W+K London blog
February 8, 2012
You can find your identity in the damage that’s been done to you. Very, very dangerous. You find your identity in your wounds, in your scars, in the places where you’ve been beat up and you turn them into a medal. We all wear the things we’ve survived with some honour, but the real honour… [Read more…]
January 10, 2012
The quote below is an excerpt from A Man Without A Country — a diamond of a book by the inimitable Kurt Vonnegut. To be as wise, incensed and articulate as Vonnegut is here (age 83) is surely one definition of success. If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don’t have the… [Read more…]
December 25, 2011
Family tension, memories of loss, or disappointment can tarnish holiday cheer, if we let them.
December 1, 2011
Not only is Lady Gaga the best pop songsmith on the planet, she has some of the best tattoos. The Rilke quote on her upper arm reads, in part: “In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write.” C’est magnifique.
June 7, 2011
Thanks to a dreadful Guardian interview I have discovered the incredible Arundhati Roy. I had vaguely filed her in my mind as a contemporary novelist. How wrong. She is an artist, feminist, social activist and genius for life. This is an excerpt from her essay The End of Imagination. There are other worlds. Other kinds… [Read more…]
June 5, 2011
When I first read Hunter S Thompson’s remark that: “Freedom is a challenge. You decide who you are by what you,” I thought he was talking about one’s profession. I thought that freedom consists primarily of not getting up in the morning and going to work for someone else. So I extricated myself from the… [Read more…]
April 24, 2011
It was one of Hunter S Thompson’s favourites so, after buying and carting it from Glasgow, I finally got around to sinking into All The King’s Men. According to the New York Times blurb on the back it is: “The definitive novel about American politics.” Which is on par with saying Macbeth is the definitive… [Read more…]
February 12, 2011
In honour of Lincoln’s birthday, a quote I misread at first When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion. I thought it said: when I feel good, I do good. When I feel bad, I do bad. That version makes a lot of sense. There is… [Read more…]
March 26, 2012
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