Archive for the 'Useful' Category

When All You Have Is 5 Minutes…

Sometimes, you won’t have a lot of time. The words will just have to show up ready, preformed. Packaged. That’s how it is in life. It doesn’t always send you what would thrill you. I’ve had it happen enough times now though–you don’t always realize what’s going to make you happiest. And it isn’t only writing that’s like that. Charlotte
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Gay Talese on the Questions that Guide Us

Every time I go to a journalism class, invited by some guy at NYU or Columbia, after the class is over, and I’m about to leave to go to dinner somewhere, somebody comes up to me. “Mr. Talese, can I have your address? I’d like to write to you.” I say, “Listen, I’m here now to talk to you, but I’m
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The Value of Suffering

“As a boy, I’d learned that it’s the Latin, and maybe a Greek, word for ‘suffering’ that gives rise to our word ‘passion.’ Etymologically, the opposite of suffering is, therefore, ‘apathy’; the Passion of the Christ, say, is a reminder, even a proof, that suffering is something that a few high souls embrace to try to lessen the pains of
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Wednesday Morning Pages

“I will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.” –G.K. Chesterton (on my small, slow faith…) Sometimes I feel like a wisp of wind next to the overwhelming breeze of others’ faith.
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The Story Uses You

I'm a PK (pastor's kid). So for many years I resisted anything that smacked of churchy Christianity. But stories could always circumnavigate my barriers. Jesus knew this too–the story was everything. When he asked which man did the right thing, everyone knew it was the Samaritan. Story sticks in the brain and causes the hearer to rethink their ideas in light
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