Taking trips tore all of us up inside, for they seemed, each journey away from home, something that might have been less selfishly undertaken, or something that would test us, or something that had better be momentous, to justify such a leap into the dark. The torment and guilt - the torment of having the loved one go, the guilt of being the loved one gone - comes into my fiction as it did and does in my life. And most of all the guilt then was because it was true: I had left to arrive at some future and secret joy, at what was unknown, and what was no in New York, waiting to be discovered. My joy was connected with my writing; that was as much as I knew.
Eudora Welty
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES As I let it out, layer by layer, Dr. Driscoll helped with the bumps and valleys. He knew just how mu... CHARLES L. BAILEY JR. I was in the book, and the book was in my head, and as long as I stayed inside my head, I could go o... PAUL AUSTER …Then another porpoise broke the water and rolled toward us. A third and fourth porpoise neared. T... PAT CONROY There was no admission of guilt in making a gesture of that kind. That was a gesture on my behalf be... COLIN MONTGOMERIE I knew many Marines had done brave deeds that no one saw and for which they got no medals at all. I ... KARL MARLANTES My first guitar was like a campfire guitar. And it was left at a house that my family had moved into... JIMMY PAGE When my mother would tell me that she wanted me to have something because she as a child had never h... EUDORA WELTY At the time I was being molested, I thought I was the only one. My father controlled everything in o... PATTI FEUEREISEN As a panting Tracy Ferris scrambled into the life-pod, this thought was precisely what was running t... CHRISTINA ENGELA Waiting, waiting, waiting. All my life, I've been waiting for my life to begin, as if somehow my... CAMRYN MANHEIM My father did not bring it up, but of course I knew that he had another reason to worry about my dec... EUDORA WELTY I remember one of my first international trips to Poland. After a long, tortuous journey, we arrived... LYNN DAVIES Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had... OSCAR WILDE The rules only applied to people who couldn’t afford different rules. CAMERON STRACHER I don't know if I have a favorite color. KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl. KATE MIDDLETON There is something about being loved and protected by a parent (or guardian) knowing that I can be l... JONATHAN HARNISCH Paul's one thing was committing to forget about the past, to forge ahead into the future. CRAIG GROESCHEL We do not always remember the things that do no credit to us. We justify them, cover them in bright ... NEIL GAIMAN In 1998, Vanity Fair asked me to write a big piece for them on the 50th anniversary of the New York ... ROBERT GOTTLIEB It was one of the most sublimely exhilarating moments of my life. I was half a step in front of the ... PAUL AUSTER She was made up of more, too. She was the books she read in the library. She was the flower in the b... BETTY SMITH I connected very much with all the work of Joan Crawford because she started as a flapper. She used ... BERENICE BEJO The whole crazy business seemed to pull out of my guts the very worst in me—my worst fears—the w... LON MILO DUQUETTE English fiction was something I loved growing up, and it changed my life - it changed the trajectory... ZADIE SMITH The Imperial Senate, ever conscious of the weight of public opinion resting on the tip of the pencil... CHRISTINA ENGELA No one in my family or my circle of friends had ever had to confront something like this. Jamie was ... NICHOLAS SPARKS Anyways, that very same night there was a fight in the casino on B Deck. Some of the passengers got ... CHRISTINA ENGELA I'd look at one of my stonecutters hammering away at the rock, perhaps a hundred times without a... JACOB RIIS I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an ... GRAHAM GREENE My daughter Gabby very kindly once said that she thinks I was a better mother because I was doing a ... DONNA KARAN I knew that I did not have to buy into society's notion that I had to be handsome and healthy to be ... WARREN MITCHELL In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression. Dr. Sterling was right about that. I love... ELIZABETH WURTZEL As I was walking back to start my run in for the sixth ball with the crowd really stirred up and roa... MICHAEL HOLDING I had just returned to Woodstock from the Midwest - from my father's funeral. The previous week had ... BOB DYLAN Music gave me something that was not only good for me - it gave me something to work on, something t... FLEA What made more sense was that the bargain she was bound to was to go on living as she had been doing... ALICE MUNRO Appearing as a character in my brother’s books taught me something about myself. For most of my li... JOHN ELDER ROBISON But that had been grief--this was joy. Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordina... LEO TOLSTOY To have been possessed by something so awful and so alien, and then the next morning wake up from it... JAMES C. DOBSON I had some big ups and downs when I was in my 20s and the one thing I learned was, no matter how low... DARREN ARONOFSKY And then I knew that despite all the pain and hard work all of us had gone through, despite the sadn... ERICA SEHYUN SONG 'm so fortunate to have done what I love to do for so long, but the day I retired was one of the... CARL LEWIS Love was something I would not have to worry about - the whole mystery of love, heartbreak songs, an... DOROTHY ALLISON The Headmaster told Professor Flitwick that this was, indeed, a secret and delicate matter of which ... ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY I was terrified of opening my marriage to outside influence. Because it was the center of my life an... PAGE TURNER My own life was filled with so much love and joy that when depression struck, it was like a prison d... SUSAN POLIS SCHUTZ ...But it gradually seemed to me that I'd made myself believe something that wasn't true. I'd made m... PHILIP PULLMAN The fear of the unknown was eclipsed by the gladness that came of taking action, of doing something ... TRACY L. HIGLEY Yes, love, ...but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something,... LEO TOLSTOY In that sense, this is not a standard book of interviews. Nor is it what you might call a book of 'c... HARUKI MURAKAMI Well, do you suppose I made up my mind then that what I had seen was something sickening? Not a bit ... LEO TOLSTOY I couldn't look at her. I'd been jealous and hurt, and I had dragged Liv into the middle of my own b... KAMI GARCIA That is something that my mother instilled in me at a very young age - to know my self-worth. And I ... IMAN By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had t... HARUKI MURAKAMI I knew that I did not have to buy into society's notion that I had to be handsome and healthy to... WARREN MITCHELL I had always thought that I would do something that was connected to music as a career, or possibly ... CHARLES SOULE I loved being away from school. I didn't really fancy school that much when I was little; it was... GERALDINE BROOKS She was made up of more, too. She was the books she read in the library. She was the flower in the b... BETTY SMITH I recall how miserable I was, and how one day you brought me to a realization of my miserable state.... AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO I had seen 'Pillowman' in London and loved it. Being part of something that I, as an audienc... ZELJKO IVANEK But surely Uncle Akbar could not be dead as they were dead? There must be something indestructible �... M.M. KAYE When I was a kid, I used to be afraid of the dark. I would stand at my door, turn the light off and ... BRIAN KRAUSE My father died five days before I returned to New York. He was only fifty-three years old. My parent... BEVERLY SILLS She was trying to say something else; she was trying to say that the inability to articulate what on... NICK HORNBY It’s a general rule – a law of space, as it was a law of the sea in the old days, that ships had... CHRISTINA ENGELA Clay in the hands of a good potter suffers so many good turns, but in the end, we see its real and t... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH If I get too old to write, or short-term memory loss - that was the one Philip Roth was worried abou... THOMAS MCGUANE Seeing everything that we had worked for and, in many cases, fought for be put into motion and be su... CAMERON FRENCH All what stuck in my mind was what the judge had said, and that was during the assault there must ha... STEPHEN RICHARDS I, too, had set out to be remembered. I had wanted to create something permanent in my life- some pr... SUSAN ORLEAN I started writing as a child. But I didn't think of myself actually writing until I was in colle... ALICE WALKER I was a hostess in a restaurant in New York when I was 21, and I was too good of an employee. I was ... EMILY DESCHANEL It was something I couldn't put my finger on or define clearly, but a whole mishmash of words and in... SARAH DESSEN Why did I become a writer? Because I grew up in New York City, and there were seven newspapers in Ne... H. G. BISSINGER The passenger liner Ossifar Distana was one of the most luxurious of its kind in space anywhere. It ... CHRISTINA ENGELA I made spasmodic efforts to work, assuring myself that once I began working I would forget her. The ... ALFRED HAYES True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt a... R. D. LAING To us, that was more or less an admission of guilt. WILLIAM MYERS It was a joy to be a part of the team that created Round The Horne. I was involved with the show at ... BARRY TOOK At forty two years, Sona Kilroy stood tall and strapping, a powerful figure. Rising to the rank of A... CHRISTINA ENGELA I was still young and the whole world of beauty was opening before me, my own officious obstructions... C.S. LEWIS One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; — ... EDGAR ALLAN POE I hit everything so hard this year. I had the biggest tour I've ever done, I had a record to finish ... KENNY CHESNEY I was the first one in my family to go away to college. I came from a small town where there was no ... E. L. KONIGSBURG It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up wi... ERICA JONG Here is the voice of my main Character in my Talon book series, I’ll let her introduce herself to ... GIGI SEDLMAYER It's something that was a part of my growing up and my childhood, ... I loved the hall. TAMMY WYNETTE Then I looked right at Mama, for the first time in what seemed like forever, and she wasn't looking ... KATHERINE HANNIGAN The unfortunate thing is that, sometimes, we slip, but, fortunately, consciously or unconsciously, w... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its mea... G.K. CHESTERTON In the journey of life, certain paths may seem to be leading nowhere because of a mountain or hill o... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH I could have had someone else take care of my child but I did it because that was my moral obligatio... GLORIA ALLRED As I came closer, it took shape: long, slender, and curling, with numerous heart-shaped leaves. I fe... COLLEEN BOYD I spent the first twenty years of my life waiting for two men I was reasonably certain would never c... BRETT BUTLER I had never been this mad at her before. It was one thing to be attacked by someone you hated, but t... KAMI GARCIA Luck, normalcy, fate ... none of those seemed to be on our side. Our very being together went agains... AMY PLUM If I was freer than I had ever been in my life, I was not yet entirely free, for I still hung on to ... WENDELL BERRY I was very into New Order, Joy Division, all of that when I was younger. I had a lot of bootlegs tha... DYLAN MORAN
More Eudora Welty
The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy. EUDORA WELTY For the night was not impartial. No, the night loved some more than others, served some more than ot... EUDORA WELTY The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they fi... EUDORA WELTY All serious daring starts from within. EUDORA WELTY Through learning at my later date things I hadn't known, or had escaped or possibly feared realizing... EUDORA WELTY It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by peopl... EUDORA WELTY Don't want to do a thing, Ran, do we, from now and on till evermore. EUDORA WELTY Writers and travelers are mesmerized alike by knowing of their destinations. EUDORA WELTY She was a perfect lady--just sat in her seat and stared. EUDORA WELTY Integrity can be neither lost nor concealed nor faked nor quenched nor artificially come by nor outl... 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