“Some people, you have to grit your teeth in order to stay in the same room as them, but you get on and ask the questions you assume most of the people watching want to ask.” PeopleWantOrderAsksRoomsAssumingTeethGrit Author:Morley Safer
“Everyone has doors in the living room of their lives that they assume are locked. Doors that lead to artistic expression. People say "I have no talent -- I can't dance or sing or paint or write poetry or play an instrument." More often than not the doors are not locked, just closed. One may turn the handle, open the door and pass through into a larger life space.” PeopleWritingMayArtI CanPlayTurnsSpaceRoomsDoorsTalentExpressionInstrumentsAssumingPaintHandleArtisticLockedLiving RoomArtistic ExpressionLocked Doors Author:Robert Fulghum
“One of the most essential and mundane of human activities - taking care of children - requires high levels of anxious vigilance. ... [Parents] dare not risk assuming that the sudden quiet from the toddlers' room means they are studying with Baby Einstein. Visualize fratricidal stranglings and electric outlets stabbed with forks: this is how we have reproduced our genomes.” HumansMeanChildrenCareParentLevelsRoomsStudyRiskBabyActivityQuietEssentialsAssumingDareAnxiousElectricOutletsMundaneForksHigh LevelHuman ActivityVigilanceToddlerGenomeStrangling Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
“The telephone conversation is, by its very nature, reactive, not reflective. Immediacy is its prime virtue. ... The letter, written in absorbed solitude, is an act of faith: it assumes the presence of humanity: world and self are generated from within: loneliness is courted, not feared. To write a letter is to be alone with my thoughts in the conjured presence of another person. I keep myself imaginative company. I occupy the empty room.” WorldWritingPersonsSelfHumanityRoomsCompanyVirtueWrittenLonelinessSolitudeConversationEmptyLettersAssumingPrimeTelephonesMy ThoughtsImaginativeImmediacyEmpty Rooms Author:Vivian Gornick