“It's not that you get a cliché and then wiggle it about or use synonyms. You don't take an ordinary decorative paragraph and give it style. What you're trying to do is be faithful to your perceptions and transmit them as faithfully as you can. I say these sentences until they sound right. There's no objective reason why they're right. They just sound right to me.” GivingWritingTryingReasonUseSoundStylePerceptionOrdinarySentencesObjectivesReason WhyFaithfulParagraphTransmitBeing FaithfulSynonym Author:Martin Amis
“To walk into Bill Olsen's poems is to enter a mind so weirdly curious, you can't be released to sadness, not yet: it's just too surprising. But this book-half microscope, half telescope-shadows grief, our shared and ordinary life where an old neighbor obsessively gathers twigs to wish back the tree, where the moon is regularly ‘sawn in half,’ where sprinklers give off ‘little wet speeches.’ What else? It's brilliantly instead and odd.” GivingMindLittlesBookWishWalksGriefHalfTreeSadnessMoonSpeechOrdinaryShadowBillsNeighborCuriousOddSurprisingWetOrdinary LifeTelescopesMicroscopesTwigs Author:Marianne Boruch
“To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give... You will find that people forget the failures of others very quickly.... My last piece of advice is not to let anyone see your mortification, but whatever you fancy people are saying about you to go on with your ordinary life as though nothing unpleasant had happened to you.” PeopleGivingCharacterLastsForgetPiecesHappenedAdviceFailureGoes OnBearsOrdinaryProofFancyOrdinary LifeMortification Author:W. Somerset Maugham
“It's abundantly clear by now that no DRM system can stop serious pirates. A DRM system that stops serious pirates, and simultaneously gives broad leeway to ordinary users, is even harder to imagine.” GivingClearImagineSeriousOrdinaryHarderBroadsUsersPirateDrm Author:Edward Felten
“A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary discussion is that, within the latter people usually hold relatively fixed positions and argue in favor of their views as they try to convince others to change. At best this may produce agreement or compromise, but it does not give rise to anything creative.” PeopleGivingTryingMayDoeDifferencesViewsCreativePositionProduceKeysOrdinaryArguingFavorsDialogueCompromiseDiscussionFixedConvinceLatterAgreement Author:David
“Giving my life to you may mean leading a very ordinary life or it may mean leading an extraordinary life. It may mean having a family and a career or it may mean going beyond all that to just work for others. It's hard to say. Rather than making a decision myself, I'm going to give my life to you, to do with as you will, because I know that you are my self, you are my very being.” KnowsGivingMayMeanSelfHardDecisionCareersOrdinaryYogaExtraordinaryKarmaOrdinary LifeKarma YogaExtraordinary Life Author:Frederick Lenz