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Quote by Emily Raboteau

“I don't think of rejection as rejection, just a bad fit. Then I seek out other avenues of acceptance.”

Author

Emily Raboteau is an American fiction writer born on July 11, 1976. Her works often explore themes of race, identity, and gender, known for their delicate touch and profound insight. more

“My goals as an artist have nothing to do with speaking to an audience. I love to have a good time, but when it comes to poetry I'm not really interested in writing poetry that seeks to entertain or operate safely within the mainstream and, to be clear, I'm not disparaging the really phenomenal work that does - it's just not my interest as a poet.”

Writing Artist Goal Interest Audience Poet Good Times Having A Good Time Phenomenal Writing Poetry

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“I don't keep from despairing. I let myself despair. I just don't linger there for too long. There's too much to laugh about, two knuckleheads I have to feed, and a lot of really excellent television to watch. I think the mess we're in deserves the full range of human feeling, from despair to its opposite, which I would say is not hope, happiness, or peace, but freedom.”

Thinking Long Feelings Laughing Despair Deserve Mess Excellent

Author:Emily Raboteau

“Here is a pragmatic and idealistic suggestion, White America! When you see my kids on the playground, on the street, can you remember to smile at them as you would smile at your own? Because believe me as your better angel already does they are every bit as lovable.”

Believe Kids Remember Angel Believe In Me Pragmatic Lovable

Author:Emily Raboteau

“When my work does speak to audiences, when it creates audiences around it, I feel a little less crazy because what that means is that there are folks out there who are interested in thinking about themselves and the world through a prism. The prism is a labor and there can be a pleasure in labor.”

Thinking World Mean Speak Pleasure Audience Crazy Labor

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“I reach readers rather unintentionally, I think, and those readers likely connect with the slant, the off-kilter, the part of the road you can barely see from the well-traveled road. So, when I'm writing, I'm not thinking about audience at all. Instead, I'm trying to see behind those shrubs, down that hidden path. We're the weirdos of the world and there are so many weirdos.”

Thinking World Writing Trying Audience Path Weirdo

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“I'm interested is the oblique as a concept deeply connected to human lived experience, not separate from it. I was listening to an interview with film director Stephen Frears on NPR the other day and he said, "People's lives are never what you think they are," or something like that. Human lives are oblique. It makes sense to me that attending to them in language is as well.”

Thinking Film Language Listening Make Sense

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.”

World Want Ideas Ends Age Wonder Birthday Commerce Dirt 60th Birthday Clearance

Author:Soren Kierkegaard

“For me, a lot of Discipline was very personal writing, like writing through and working out being inside this gendered body and also the compulsions of the body, the muting of the mind as driven by the body. My father had died some years ago so he haunts the book too, just floats through it ghost-like. But, the writing of every book is different for me. They are so like living creatures, these books, so I don't know what's carried over into the writing of the next things - except maybe that I'm best when I make my writing practice a routine.”

Writing Mind Book Different Father Discipline Work Out Driven

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“When I am writing poetry, I try to make my mind go a little lazy, to not think too much, as a way of opening up the part of the brain that makes poems. If I'm successful in this part of the process I'm often not. If my mind gets too lazy it will linger in familiar boring territory, it's like my mind can stroke the physical world.”

Thinking World Writing Trying Mind Brain Successful Boring Familiar Lazy Writing Poetry

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“The precise laziness is akin to letting your eyes blur or glimpsing what's at the corners in peripheral vision. Or those moments when you think you see something but you're not sure you actually saw it in the end. The way I get to these places is just practice, like a kind of meditation that shapes my brain.”

Thinking Kind Moments Eye Brain Vision Meditation Not Sure Laziness Blur

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

Quote by Emily Raboteau

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