“There are certainly times when my own everyday life seems to retreat so the life of the story can take me over. That is why a writer often needs space and time, so that he or she can abandon ordinary life and "live" with the characters.” NeedsCharacterStoriesSeemsMy OwnSpaceOrdinaryEverydayAbandonTake MeEveryday LifeRetreatTime And SpaceOrdinary Life Author:Margaret Mahy
“You see, years ago I was just an ordinary bee minding my own business, smelling flowers all day, and occasionally picking up part-time work in people's bonnets. Then one day I realized that I'd never amount to anything without an education and, being naturally adept at spelling, I decided that—” PeopleYearsMy OwnFlowerAmountOne DayOrdinaryYears AgoDecidedI RealizedBeesOwn BusinessSpellingPart TimeAdeptBonnetsMinding My Own Business Book:The phantom tollbooth Source: The phantom tollbooth
“End-of-the-world stories tend to ring true. I've always been drawn to them, but as I wrote my own, I found surprising pleasure in creating a world that is so radically changed, yet where there's so much meaning and value in every small and ordinary thing we have, and take for granted: hot showers, enough food, friends, routines.” WorldEndsEnoughStoriesValuesFoundMy OwnPleasureChangedCreatingOrdinaryHotRingsGrantedSurprisingShowersEnd Of The WorldOrdinary Things Author:Karen Thompson Walker
“The trouble is that when most people are apathetic ordinary people ... have to go too far, have to ruin their lives and be made an object of scorn just to get the point across. Did they really think I'd rather be camping by a polluted river than sitting in my own flat with my things about me?” PeopleThinkingMadeMy OwnTroubleObjectsOrdinarySittingRiversRuinsFlatsOrdinary PeopleScornCampingApathetic Book:Sexing the Cherry Source: Sexing the Cherry
“Dachau has been my own lifelong point of no return. Between the moment when I walked through the gate of that prison, with its infamous motto, 'Arbeit Macht Frei,' and when I walked out at the end of a day that had no ordinary scale of hours, I was changed, and how I looked at the human condition, the world we live in, changed ... Years of war had taught me a great deal, but war was nothing like Dachau. Compared to Dachau, war was clean.” WorldYearsHumansHas BeensWarEndsMomentsHoursMy OwnDealsConditionsChangedTaughtReturnOrdinaryPrisonCleanScalesWar Of The WorldsGatesWorld War IiHolocaustHuman ConditionWorld War IMottoLifelongInfamousDachau Author:Martha Gellhorn
“It's unsettling, to lose the safety of the familiar, even when what's disrupted is an ordinary routine. When I began this poem, I was grieving for the loss of my old barbershop in Manhattan, and wondering at the strangeness of my new one. I didn't have any idea the poem would break into the underworld, opening a deeper subject: the continuing force of the old griefs routine helps to mediate, and my strange, sheer wonder at my own survival. Where's home now? In the contingent present, in which anything can disappear, and where we're sometimes granted some form of grace.” IdeasSometimesHelpingHomeFormForceLosesMy OwnLossGriefWonderBreakGraceSubjectsStrangeSurvivalOrdinarySafetyDeeperDisappearFamiliarOpeningGrantedGrievingRoutineContinuingSheerManhattanStrangenessUnderworldBarbershop Author:Mark Doty