some mornings... I sit at the kitchen table shaking salt into the hairs on my arm, and a feeling shoves up in me: it's finished. Everything went past without me.
Jennifer EganRead
The part of the process that's exciting to me is feeling like I'm in a place I've never been before, in every way. Without that, I don't know if I'd be a writer.
Interpretation
The thrill of exploring uncharted territories fuels the passion for writing.
Jennifer Egan expresses that the essence of her writing lies in the excitement of immersion in new experiences and perspectives. This sense of discovery is crucial for her creative process, suggesting that for her, growth and exploration are integral to her identity as a writer.
In practice
In a motivational speech about pursuing passions.
some mornings... I sit at the kitchen table shaking salt into the hairs on my arm, and a feeling shoves up in me: it's finished. Everything went past without me.
I think there are ways in which we censor ourselves; that's the most dangerous kind of censorship - that's how hegemony works.
I find myself thinking more about the past as I get older... maybe because there's just more of it to think about. At the same time, I'm less haunted by it than I was as a younger person. I guess that's probably the ideal: to reach a point where you have access to all of your memories, but you don't feel victimized by them.
I think, for one thing, all of us remember those teenage years and those songs that we fell in love with and the music scene that we were part of. So, in a certain way, music cuts through time like almost nothing else. You know, it makes us feel like we're back in an earlier moment.
And Alex understood that Scotty Hausmann did not exist. He was a word casing in human form: a shell whose essence has vanished.
We live in a moment and a culture when reading is really endangered. There's simply no way to write well, though, if you're not reading well.
I was hopeless, now I'm on Hope Road.
Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!
You can wipe your feet on me, twist my motives around all you like, you can dump millstones on my head and drown me in the river, but you can’t get me out of the story. I’m the plot, babe, and don’t ever forget it.
There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who wish to make those dreams a reality.
I want to show little girls that the possibilities are endless. That's my goal - to not only do it for myself, but to show them I can do whatever I put my mind to.
I've found that there is always some beauty left-in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you. Look at these things, then you find yourself again, and God, and then you regain your balance. And whoever is happy will make others happy too. He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!
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