“Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to [...] have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars - to be a part of scene, anonomous, listening, recording - all is spoiled by the fact that i am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night."

Sylvia Plath

mary maclane, the story of mary maclane / pierre bonnard - jeune femme écrivant, 1908 / louise fitzhugh, harriet the spy / phil grey - two photos from will self’s writing room: a 360 degree view in 71 photos, 2007 / tom astor - susie boyt’s notebooks, 2018 / stephen king, on writing / jill krementz - stephen king at his home office with his corgi marlowe, 1995 / joan didion - “on keeping a notebook” / wayne miller - author and poet maya angelou, 1974 / photo of sylvia plath from the everett collection / anne carson in a 2016 interview with NPR / octavia butler’s motivational notes to self / jim carroll, the basketball diaries / benjamin garcia - writing painting, 2012 / wayne pascal - writer’s block, 2019 / louisa may alcott, little women / little women (2019) / mary shelley (2017) / dickinson (2019) / anne lamott, bird by bird

on writing

"Seungyeon always said girls don't need special treatment — they just want the same responsibilities and opportunities. Instead of choosing the lunch menu, they want to run for president. One devoted member of the club would always repeat the same thing: 'It's too much work for women. You brighten up the club with your mere presence.' 'I'm not here to support you,' Seungyeon would say. 'If the club needs brightening up, get a lamp. I'm sick and tired of this place, but I'm gonna keep fighting tooth and nail until the day a woman becomes president of the hiking club.'"

— Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Ji Young, Born 1982

"There's something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold."

- Gillian Flynn

"I wish to live a life that causes my soul to dance inside my body."

- Dele Olanubi

"I was looked at, but I wasn't seen."

- Albert Camus, The Misunderstanding

"Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold."

- Zelda Fitzgerald

"No one's been crueler than I've been to me."

- Sorry To Myself, song by Alanis Morissette

"Is there another life? Shall I awake and find all this a dream? There must be, we cannot be created for this sort of suffering."

- John Keats

"I want so obviously, and so desperately to be loved, and to be capable of love."

- Franz Kafka

"I'm sure there are aspects of my personality buried within me that will surface as soon as I know I am completely loved."

- Jerzy Kosinski

"By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired."

"If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?"

"My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me."

"From a certain point onward there is no turning back. That is the point that must be reached."

"Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old."

Appreciating Franz Kafka