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Quote by Melissa Febos

“Letting go of the cozy stories you've been carrying around is devastating. But there's more room for new stuff after you do it.”

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Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos is a contemporary writer known for her unique narrative style and profound insights into personal experiences. Her works often explore themes such as gender, identity, and memory. more

“I always listen to music when I write! I basically make a playlist for every essay; sometimes it's just one song, or three songs, over and over and over. I sort of find the emotional pitch of the piece, and then match music to it, and then the music becomes a shortcut to the feeling, so I can enter it and work anywhere: on planes, cafes, at work, the train.”

Writing Sometimes Feelings Song Emotional Music Is Train Essays Listening To Music

Author:Melissa Febos

“Maybe feeling of presence in my body is why I've always sought out extreme experiences; it forces me to be in a moment, to face the fact of my existing in that particular moment, in my body.”

Moments Feelings

Author:Melissa Febos

“I think that's the job of the writer, right? Not to introduce new ideas or feelings, but to name the ones we know most intimately but are afraid of speaking, or don't have the words. That's what I find most powerful anyway.”

Thinking Feelings Powerful Most Powerful Introducing

Author:Melissa Febos

“To find a form that accommodates the shape of the mess, that is the task of the artist now.”

Artist Mess

Author:Samuel Beckett

“Writing, for me, has to do with liberty of mind. The liberty to intuit, assess, be surprised, even to be ashamed and reconsider. To feel the integrity and generosity of words, but also their disruptive violence and volatility. To even begin to do them justice requires a radical letting go and stringent attention. I was interested in following that impulse toward liberty.”

Writing Mind Justice Attention Liberty Violence Integrity Letting Go Radical Generosity Impulse Ashamed

Author:Laurie Sheck

“One of the beautiful things about writing is that it offers an inner life that's disciplined and at the same time wild. Not in any way servile or submissive. It exists outside of institutional and other forms of authority even when being affected by them. On what almost feels like a cellular level, it's anathema to labeling and enforced divisions.”

Writing Beautiful Authority Beautiful Things Submissive

Author:Laurie Sheck

“Disability strips away complacency. Affliction is brutal, but it can also push vital questions to the fore. The afflicted body becomes a site of otherness, confusion, isolation, watchfulness, longing. One becomes keenly aware of the impersonality of brute matter, but at the same time there is often a raw, mistrustful desire for gentleness, connection.”

Desire Longing Confusion Isolation Disability Brutal Gentleness Complacency

Author:Laurie Sheck

“It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.”

Men Humans Desire Opposites Passing Passings Imperfection Passing Through Perfection And Imperfection Human Imperfection

Author:Soren Kierkegaard

“Writing involves an acceptance of being on the margin, the threshold, a galvanization out of received notions into a more activated, kinetic, often perilous, seeing.”

Writing Acceptance

Author:Laurie Sheck

Quote by Melissa Febos

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