In a culture that is becoming ever more story-stupid, in which a representative of the Coca-Cola company can, with a straight face, pronounce, as he donates a collection of archival Coca-Cola commercials to the Library of Congress, that 'Coca-Cola has become an integral part of people's lives by helping to tell these stories,' it is perhaps not surprising that people have trouble teaching and receiving a novel as complex and flawed as Huck Finn, but it is even more urgent that we learn to look passionately and technically at stories, if only to protect ourselves from the false and manipulative ones being circulated among us.

تتوقف دموعها وتستمر الأفكار كتيار قوي مندفع يسبب الألم لكل خلية من خلايا دماغها ويدمر فيها أي رغبة بالابتسام.

يتلون مرة بالأزرق ومرة بالأحمر، يتمدد أحيانا وأحيانا ينكمش، يبتسم حلمي وأبتسم، الحلم الجميل يقترب من الحقيقة.

? Natatakot ako na baka hindi ako alalahanin ng mga tao kapag nawala na ako sa mundo. Hindi naman sa sobrang desperada akong gumawa ng good deed just for that pathetic reason, pero aminin man natin o hindi, kahit na gaano pa kasama ang isang tao, kahit sa kaloob looban niya, kahit papaano ay inaasam niya pa rin na maalala siya kapag wala na siya, na mamiss pa rin siya ng mga tao kahit na hindi na siya nakikita pa, na iiyakan siya kahit isang luha lang ang kumawala sa mata ng taong pinapahalagahan niya kapag nalamang pansamantala siyang mawawalay ng matagal sa mga tao, at kahit papaano ay sasabihin ng kahit isang tao man lang na “Kung nandito siya, sana..

Only now, in rhythmic waves, was she struck by her stupidity, her blindness, her estheronautiness, and, above all, her longing, the insult of the power of her longing, and she knew very well that is was these shortcomings that had made her so eager to interweave in his story the threads of her secret dreams of candor and of painful, purifying honesty; of a generous togetherness in which everything was possible. For a moment, with all that had been spun and stabbed and defiled within her, her face took on the expression of a frightened, abandoned girl who lunges out to bite, who lives unimaginably close to the skin’s surface, ready to be drawn out like a final plan of retreat.

إنها مجنونة، متخبطة، وهي التي تكره المرأة المتخبطة، تكرر انه لم يعد يعني لها شيئا ثم تقودها أشواقها التي تنكرها إليه.

I once held a belief that life made sense, that working toward a dream would birth substance. Nothing else mattered. I soon discovered that success is as long-lasting as any of life’s novelties. We’ve all been happy with new things, only to be disappointed later. Dolls and soldiers our parents toiled to give us found their way to pedestals, then to the back of closets. I’d always dreamed of marrying a woman I loved and watching my children grow. I wonder if our lives should be filled with the pursuit of such dreams, those magical hopes interwoven into our story. Our stories are decorative shells for the crabs we really are, both protecting and exposing us to the manic outside.

Tahun lalu kita reunian untuk yg pertama kalinya, tahun ini kita reunian lagi untuk yg kedua kalinya. Entah ada maksud apa yg mempertemukan kita hingga kita bisa sampai pdkt-an walau cuma terhitung satu hari. Kita tau kita saling suka, kita tau kita banyak bedanya, kita juga tau kita bahwa sebenarnya kita saling membutuhkan, tapi kita tetap milih untuk tidak bertahan pada perasaan, hingga sekarang kita sudah berjauhan dan kembali menjadi teman walau tidak seperti sungguhan. Ini semua terangkum karna aku yakin kamu mau bertahan walaupun kamu egoisan, dan aku yakin kamu pasti bosan dengan kelakuan aku, hingga suatu saat kamu pasti akan datang dan menyatakan, "kamu adalah yang aku butuhkan..." :')

يجب على الناس ألا يتركوا المرايا معلقة في غرفهم أبدا، إلا بقدر ما يتركون دفتر شيكات مفتوحا أو خطاباتاعتراف بجريمة بشعة.

Nema novih priča. Svaka priča je stara, već poznata i bezroj puta ponovljena. Kao što se svaki život kreće od rođenja do smrti, tako se i svaka priča kreće od početka do kraja. Čak i ako pokušate priču da ispričate od kraja, to će tada biti njen početak, kao što će njen početak biti njen kraj. I šta nam tada preostaje? Da prestanemo da pričamo priče? Ali ceo ovaj svet, naš svet, uobličen je od priča i kao priča, i ako pristanemo da prestanemo, tog sveta neće više biti, dok će od nas ostati samo senke, tamne mrlje na poleđini noći. (Nova priča)

I was walking around in an almost blind, crazy rage of madness. There was a story burning a hole in my brain, and it was dying to come out on paper. It was begging of me to create it, but I didn’t know where to begin. A month after giving birth to the idea, I felt like I was losing my mind. Ideas would pop into my head in the middle of the night, or during a midterm, and I missed them, quite narrowly, almost every time. Every time an idea left my mind without taking the shape of a word on paper, my mind would automatically begin to churn something just as impressive, or at least close to it. I was digging myself into a shallow grave, and I was getting nowhere. And this was even before the thoughts were committed to paper.

بعد رحيلك كان صعبا علي الاحتفاظ بأي من ذكرياتك، بأي شيء يمكن أن يعيدني إليك أو يعيدك إلي، أردت أن أتغير طناا مني إني سأتخلص منك.

It was Stevenson, I think, who most notably that there are some places that simply demand a story should be told of them. ...After all, perhaps Stevenson had only half of the matter. It is true there are places which stir the mind to think that a story must be told about them. But there are also, I believe, places which have their story stored already, and want to tell this to us, through whatever powers they can; through our legends and lore, through our rumors, and our rites. By its whispering fields and its murmuring waters, by the wailing of its winds and the groaning of its stones, by what it chants in darkness and the songs it sings in light, each place must reach out to us, to tell us, tell us what it holds. ("The Axholme Toll")

An admirable line of Pablo Neruda’s, “My creatures are born of a long denial,” seems to me the best definition of writing as a kind of exorcism, casting off invading creatures by projecting them into universal existence, keeping them on the other side of the bridge… It may be exaggerating to say that all completely successful short stories, especially fantastic stories, are products of neurosis, nightmares or hallucination neutralized through objectification and translated to a medium outside the neurotic terrain. This polarization can be found in any memorable short story, as if the author, wanting to rid himself of his creature as soon and as absolutely as possible, exorcises it the only way he can: by writing it.

It is pleasant to walk your dog beside a lake in winter in a tropical place because all of the black ducks waddle up the ryegrass bank and pluck the seed with their small gray beaks. There is nothing required of you but to watch them and wonder what kind of ducks these are. In fact, to do more, to wonder more, to think more, would be of something in the not-waiting, and the waiting is what I am trying to teach, the in-between, the still small tending that takes place when one sits silent and closes the eyes and lets the breeze ruffle one's hair and the edges of one's skirt and takes in the warmth of the sun on one's face as it sinks into a blue lake and trees grown dark in their shade.- Waiting: Instructions in Text and Pictures