27 October to 2 November 2024 QOTW

Image description: crotchet flower with pink petals and a yellow flower hanging on a tree.

Sunday

You think artists—writers write for that old cliché reason that people give? The intellectual likes to say that writers write to put order in the universe, but we know that the stories we read tear the universe apart and ask all kinds of questions, make people feel sad and fucked up.

Andre Dubus, as quoted by

Jeannine Ouellette

:

Jeannine Ouellette’s brilliant Substack, Writing in the Dark. From the Archives | Dear Curious: Is That Fucked Up?

Monday

I wonder, though, whether horror and beauty are two wings of the same Bird—a Bird that embodies the universal force of awe, that strange, visceral thing which forces us into relationship with something far larger than ourselves. In Death, the horror of the loss of a whole existence—and the beauty of the wisdom of a natural thing, as indifferent to our preferences as the sky.

Chloe Hope King

, Two Wings of the Same Bird in Death and Birds on Substack

Tuesday

If we don’t have light, then we don’t have a story.

Rachel Schwartzmann, author of Slowing as quoted by

Suleika Jaouad

in Sunday Prompts

Slow Living & Rachel Schwartzmann on how light moves us

Wednesday

I would love to live as the river flows,

carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.

John O’Donohue, Irish poet  as quoted by @GabrielaGutierrez in Under a Fig Tree,

To Live as the River Flows

Thursday

Young men holding violets are curious to know if you have cried.

Albatross by Judy Collins

I never listened to Judy Collins much when she was on the radio. I don’t know why now. A strange idea that she was competing with Joni Mitchell? I was very young when they were both popular. I have been reading Cheryl Strayed’s book, Wild aloud to Charles while he makes us lunch every day. At one point, while in the mountains, during a particularly harrowing experience navigating mud and rain and bad boots that make her feet ache, or perhaps just after, Strayed thinks about Collins’  album, Colors of the Day. I hadn’t heard of it, so I played it and loved it. At 61, I am now an ardent fan of Judy Collins, especially this song.

Friday

Because books made feel like I belonged, even when the outside world didn’t always make me feel that way.

Wake Lloire

, Whimsical Wednesday Prompts

…and vibrant with the excitement of ideas

Image description: Wake with pink and blue hair and glasses, and a pink/red blouse holds up a doodled copy of their book, All the Happy Endings. I had the pleasure of being the doodler and beta reader for this wondrous book and I can’t wait for you to read the book! thanks to Wake for letting me post the photo and for their wonderous and loving self.

Saturday

I'm hoping to be astonished tomorrow

by I don't know what.

Jim Harrison, In Search of Small Gods

If you have inspiring and intriguing quotes to share, please reach out. I’d love to include them here.

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