What makes a sentence, a phrase, a moment, or a scene delightful? Something about recognizing the truth in it, hearing the music in it, understanding, intuitively perhaps, that the words are just right. It's not a matter of even context - delight is not limited to scenes or descriptions of happiness or beauty - but of aesthetic appreciation of the thing itself. As a reader, I find it's that moment when I want to stop reading, and also that moment when I know I can't. Delight is that it's what takes me by surprise and reminds me why I love the literary arts above all others.
We are at the mercy of time, and for all the ways we are remembered, a sea of things will be lost. But how much is contained in what lingers! - Alice Mcdermott
We are at the mercy of time, and for all the ways we are remembered, a sea of things will be lost. But how much is contained in what lingers!
- Alice Mcdermott
Heightism is the last unchecked prejudice. - Alice Mcdermott
Heightism is the last unchecked prejudice.
Guilt is glorious when it's well earned. - Alice Mcdermott
Guilt is glorious when it's well earned.
My parents were both first-generation Irish Catholics raised in Brooklyn. But it was more for me - it was that women of that generation were even les… - Alice Mcdermott
My parents were both first-generation Irish Catholics raised in Brooklyn. But it was more for me - it was that women of that generation were even les…
We are surrounded by story. - Alice Mcdermott
We are surrounded by story.
In the reading and writing life, delight, for me, is where the mystery lies. Easy enough to figure out how scenes of violence or tragedy or titillati… - Alice Mcdermott
In the reading and writing life, delight, for me, is where the mystery lies. Easy enough to figure out how scenes of violence or tragedy or titillati…
My love for the child asleep in the crib, the child's need for me, for my vigilance, had made my life valuable in a way that even the most abundantly… - Alice Mcdermott
My love for the child asleep in the crib, the child's need for me, for my vigilance, had made my life valuable in a way that even the most abundantly…
Fiction that intends to be something other than entertainment has a certain obligation, I think, to convince the reader, every time, that what is to … - Alice Mcdermott
Fiction that intends to be something other than entertainment has a certain obligation, I think, to convince the reader, every time, that what is to …
When I'm not writing, I can't make sense of out anything. I feel the need to make some sense and find some order, and writing fiction is the only way… - Alice Mcdermott
When I'm not writing, I can't make sense of out anything. I feel the need to make some sense and find some order, and writing fiction is the only way…
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