“I had self-doubt about whether my story was interesting to people. I didn't want to write something that was anecdotal. It was important to me that people would get something out of my book. I want people to read it and say, "Now I don't feel so alone," or "I'm going to remember that next time I'm being an asshole."” PeopleWantFeelsWritingImportantBookSelfStoriesRememberNextInterestingDoubtNext TimeSelf-doubt Author:Lizz Winstead
“Disgrace is a subtle, multi-layered story, as much concerned with politics as it is with the itch of male flesh. Coetzee's prose is chaste and lyrical without being self- conscious: it is a relief to encounter writing as quietly stylish as this. I was not totally convinced by Lurie's musical abilities, with regard to his proposed opera, but that is my sole complaint.” WritingSelfStoriesAbilityConsciousConcernedRegardMalesMusicalConvincedFleshEncountersProseReliefSubtleOperaSoleComplaintsDisgraceSelf ConsciousLyricalChasteStylishMusical AbilityCoetzee Author:Paul Bailey
“The only real reason for self-referencing is the fun factor. It's fun for the writer, getting little peeks at what old characters might be up to. And it's fun for readers to spot a familiar face, or pick up on a made-up book title or something from an earlier story. I don't know that it does -- or even should -- contribute to the story in hand being any better than it would have been without it.” KnowsShouldLittlesDoeHas BeensMadeBookRealSelfReasonCharacterStoriesHandsMightFacesFunReaderPicksFamiliarFactorsSpotsTitlesReferencingFamiliar FacesBook Titles Author:Charles de Lint
“I'm thinking of writing a children's story about a leaf on a tree who arrogantly insists he's a self-made, independent leaf. Then one day a fierce wind blows him off his branch and to the ground below. As his life slowly ebbs away, he looks up at the magnificent old tree that had been his home and realizes that he had never been on his own. His entire life he had been part of something bigger and more beautiful than anything he could have imagined. In a blinding flash, he awakens from the delusion of self. Then an arrogant, self-centered kid rakes him up and bags him.” ThinkingWritingLooksChildrenMadeSelfStoriesHomeKidsBeautifulRealizingTreeWindOne DayBiggerIndependentBlowBranchesLook UpBagsDelusionArrogantFierceFlashMagnificentLeafsSelf CenteredSelf MadeRakesOld Trees Author:Chuck Lorre
“In the early years of the Roaring Twenties, American women not only won the right to vote but they also earned headlines along side their male counterparts during the Golden Age of American sports. Michael Bohn shares an engaging story of how two sports heroines, tennis player Helen Wills and swimmer Gertrude Ederle, helped embolden women to seek self-fulfillment by challenging the status quo.” YearsTwoSelfStoriesAgeSportsSidesChallengesPlayerShareVoteTwentiesMalesGoldenFulfillmentTennisStatus QuoEngagingHeadlinesHeroinesRight To VoteGolden AgeRoaringCounterpartsAmerican WomanSwimmerHelenTennis PlayerGertrudeChallenging The Status QuoSelf FulfillmentRoaring Twenties Author:Donna de Varona
“If there is a lesson in our story it is that the manipulation, according to strictly self-consistent rules, of a set of symbols representing one single aspect of the phenomena may produce correct, verifiable predictions, and yet completely ignore all other aspects whose ensemble constitutes reality.” IfsMaySelfStoriesRealityProduceLessonsAspectSymbolsConsistentManipulationPredictionsRepresentingEnsemble Author:Arthur Koestler
“As for comics, one has only to turn to the characteristic output of Marvel Comics, for the period from about 1961 to about 1975, to find not an expression of base and cynical impulses but of good, old-fashioned liberal humanism of a kind that may strike us today, God help us, as quaint, but which nevertheless appealed, in story after story, to ideals such as tolerance, technological optimism, and self-sacrifice for the benefit of others.” KindMaySelfHelpingStoriesTodayTurnsSacrificeExpressionPeriodsBenefitsIdealsOptimismHumanismStrikesToleranceImpulseCharacteristicsCynicalNeverthelessTechnologicalOld FashionedSelf SacrificeOutputGod HelpQuaintGod Help UsMarvel Comics Author:Michael Chabon
“To say that historical conditions made personal life possible, and with it the self-consciousness that allowed psychoanalysis to emerge, is to tell half the story: one also has to consider that the erotic impulse, ever pressing for satisfaction, had something to do with making the history that encouraged its expression.” MadeSelfStoriesHalfConsciousnessConditionsExpressionHistoricalSatisfactionImpulsePersonal LifeEroticPsychoanalysisSelf ConsciousnessHalf The Story Author:Ellen Willis
“Well it's been about 100 years and every attempt at a comics writers' union has failed miserably. There is, sadly, a long history of short-term thinking and self-destructive behavior among my fellow comic book creators. No matter how many horror stories they have heard they won't even go so far as to hire themselves a lawyer when they need it. It breaks my heart. I am a very proud union member of the Writers Guild. And I can't imagine my fellow comic creators being able to pull something like this together.” ThinkingNeedsYearsWellsHeartLongI CanBookSelfMatterStoriesAbleTogetherTermBreakImagineHeardProudMy HeartHorrorMembersBehaviorFellowsUnionsCreatorLawyerComicDestructiveComic BookShort TermSelf DestructiveBreaking My HeartHorror StoriesGuildsSelf Destructive BehaviorDestructive BehaviorShort Term Thinking Author:Brian Michael Bendis
“I am truly amazed that after all this time, religious groups still need to attack entertainment and use these tragedies as a pitiful excuse for their own self-serving publicity. In response to their protests, I will provide a show where I balance my songs with a wholesome Bible reading. This way, fans will not only hear my so-called, violent point of view, but we can also examine the virtues of wonderful 'Christian' stories of disease, murder, adultery, suicide and child sacrifice. Now that seems like 'entertainment' to me.” WayNeedsChildrenStillsSelfStoriesUseShowsSeemsChristianSongReadingReligiousViewsVirtueWonderfulSacrificeGroupsAtheismFansBalanceDiseaseTragedyMurderSuicideResponseEntertainmentExcusePositive AtheismPoint Of ViewViolentProtestServingAmazedAdulteryPublicityPitifulSelf ServingBible Reading Author:Marilyn Manson
“Among all the complaints you hear these days about the crimes of the media, it seems to me the critics miss the big one. It is that especially TV, but also we of the print press, tend to reduce mess and complexity and ambiguity to a simple story line that doesn't reflect reality so much as it distorts it. ... What bothers me about the journalistic tendency to reduce unmanageable reality to self-contained, movielike little dramas is not just that we falsify when we do this. It is also that we really miss the good story.” LittlesSelfStoriesBigsRealitySeemsLinesSimpleMediaMissingCrimeTelevisionTvsDramaPressesCriticsTendenciesJournalismMessThese DaysBotherComplexityPrintComplaintsAmbiguityGood StoryJournalisticSelf Contained Author:Meg Greenfield
“The inside operation of Congress - the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the co-opting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building - is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.” PeopleIfsBelieveEndsSelfStoriesGovernmentI BelieveDealsCareersBuildingDemandCongressSellingCompromiseOperationsServingDecadenceSelf ServingSelling Out Book:Bella!: Ms. Abzug Goes to Washington Source: Bella!: Ms. Abzug Goes to Washington
“A story demanded to be written, and that is why I have not answered your letter before: a wrong-headed story, that would come blundering like a moth on my window, and stare in with small red eyes, and I the last writer in the world to manage such a subject. One should have more self-control. One should be able to say, Go away. You have come to the wrong inkstand, there is nothing for you here. But I am so weakminded that I cannot even say, Come next week.” WorldShouldSelfStoriesEyeAbleLastsNextWrittenWeekSubjectsRedWindowLettersShould HaveManageStaringGoing AwaySelf ControlNext WeekMothsRed Eye Book:Letters Source: Letters
“I read The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and found it incredibly powerful writing. For me as a reader, it was less impactful as philosophy than as one writers ultimate confessional: an absolute horror story, where the self is the monster.” WritingHumansSelfPhilosophyStoriesFoundPowerfulRaceReaderHorrorUltimateAbsolutesMonstersHuman RaceConspiracyHorror Stories Author:Nic Pizzolatto
“With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting reveals, in every lyric, its author's profound metaphorical gifts. In its ironies and intensities, it brings to mind a writer like the young Sylvia Plath, though what is startling about Harris' s work is the way it combines those gifts with a muted, deft self-awareness. Most of all, these are wonderfully shaped, powerful, and surprising poems-a startling debut.” WayMindMadeBookSelfStoriesYoungPowerfulAwarenessSelf AwarenessProfoundExtraordinaryCraftsIronyIntensitySurprisingDebutMetaphoricalFerocityPersonal StoriesPlath Author:Meghan O'Rourke