Saturday

Mar. 2, 1996

Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore

by Elizabeth Bishop

SATURDAY 3/2

Today's reading: "Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore" by Elizabeth Bishop from COMPLETE POEMS, published by Farrar Straus Giroux.

The 1,049 mile Iditarod dog sled race begins today in Anchorage, Alaska.

The San Francisco Chinese New Year Golden Dragon Parade is held today.

It's Texas Independence Day, celebrating Texas independence from Mexico in 1836.

German composer Kurt Weill was born on this day in Dessau in 1900.

It's the birthday of children's author, Dr. Seuss, born in Springfield, Mass in 1904.

Author John Irving (The World According to Garp) turns 54 today.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
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  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
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  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
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  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
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