“I think if you look at any facet of nature in enough detail, you find it fascinating. How could you not? The universe is so full of marvels. Here's an example -- rain, the shape of rain. I was minding my own business, working on my book, looking out the window, and it was raining and I was noticing that the raindrops were falling in that classic round-looking way, and I thought, 'I wonder if raindrops really are round?' So I started researching it a little, and I discovered that raindrops change shape 300 times a second.” IfsThinkingWayLooksLittlesBookEnoughFallUniverseMy OwnWonderExampleShapesRainWindowRoundsDetailsClassicFascinatingNoticingOwn BusinessFacetsRaindropsMinding My Own Business Author:Diane Ackerman
“So often I wonder whether it is my right to capitalize, as I feel, so often, on the grief of others. But then I justify, in my own particular thoughts, by feeling that I can contribute a little to the understanding of what others are going through; then there is reason for doing it.” FeelsLittlesI CanReasonFeelingsUnderstandingMy OwnGriefWonderParticularJustify Book:Mark Z. Danielewski's House of leaves Source: Mark Z. Danielewski's House of leaves
“People wonder whether I got my presenting job as a result of my own abilities or because of Gordon, which is a little unfair.” PeopleLittlesJobsMy OwnAbilityResultsWonderUnfairPresenting Author:Tana Ramsay
“I could not help wondering in my own mind....how it came to pass that our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes - and whether our butcher contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world; but I kept my reflections to myself.” WorldMindHelpingMy OwnWonderShapesReflectionExtraordinaryMeatSheepJointsButchers Author:Charles Dickens
“My own first love was biology. I spent a great part of my adolescence in the Natural History museum in London (and I still go to the Botanic Garden almost every day, and to the Zoo every Monday). The sense of diversity of the wonder of innumerable forms of life has always thrilled me beyond anything else.” FirstsStillsFormNaturalMy OwnWonderDiversityGardenLondonBiologyMuseumsAdolescenceFirst LoveMondayZoosNatural History Author:Oliver Sacks
“I lived, particularly in childhood but with lessening intensity right on to middle age, in a world that was peculiarly and intimately my own, scarcely to be shared with others or even made plausible to them. I habitually read special meanings into things, scenes and places qualities of wonder, beauty, promise, or horror for which there was no external evidence visible or plausible to others. My world was peopled with mysteries, seductive hints, vague menaces, "intimations of immortality.” WorldMadeAgeMy OwnQualityWonderMysteryChildhoodMiddleSpecialPromiseHorrorSceneEvidenceImmortalityVisibleIntensityVagueMiddle AgesHintsSeductiveMenacePlausible Book:MEMOIRS 1925-1950 Source: MEMOIRS 1925-1950
“If anyone ever wonders why there's nothing coming from me, it's not my fault. I'm doing the work. No, I haven't deteriorated or gone insane. Suddenly, I just can't get anything into print. And apparently I'm not alone in this. There are people of very high standing, authors who are having problems. So I have been told. In my own case, the more disturbing element is the editor-in-chief who said to me, "I think this book is terrific. It ought to be in print. I can't publish it -- I've been told I mustn't." The indication is that I'm not writing what people want to read, but I never did.” PeopleIfsThinkingWantWritingHas BeensSaidI CanBookProblemMy OwnWonderCasesGoneHavensOughtElementsStandingFaultsInsaneChiefsPrintEditorsPublishTerrificDisturbingNot AloneIndication Author:Tanith Lee
“My fingers curl through the holes in the wicker, through the wet grass beneath it, trying to hold tight to the sharp blades of the present. Somewhere in my brain a sinkhole is bubbling over, and each bubble contains a scene from a tiny sunken world ... I have never been the prophet of my own past before. It makes me wonder how the healthy dreamers can bear to sleep at all, if sleep means that you have to peer into that sinkhole by yourself. ... I had almost forgotten this occipital sorrow, the way you are so alone with the things you see in dreams.” IfsWorldWayTryingMeanDreamPastMy OwnSleepBrainWonderBearsSorrowHealthySceneFingersForgottenTinyHolesGrassProphetDreamerBubblesWetPeersBladesCurlsSinkholes Author:Karen Russell
“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
“People have tried to put me in a box my whole life. I'm too tall. I'm too pretty. Too Miss USA. Wonder Woman. Prettiest woman in the world. And all of that. It doesn't matter because I've gone my own way and have tried to approach my career from a gut level, doing what I thought was right.” PeopleWorldWayMatterWholeMy OwnLevelsWonderCareersGoneMissingApproachBoxesWhole LifeUsaGutsTallPrettiestWonder Woman Author:Lynda Carter
“One of my own stray childhood fears had been to wonder what a whale might feel like had it been born and bred in captivity, then released into the wild-into its ancestral sea-its limited world instantly blowing up when cast into the unknowable depths, seeing strange fish and tasting new waters, not even having a concept of depth, not knowing the language of any whale pods it might meet. It was my fear of a world that would expand suddenly, violently, and without rules or laws: bubbles and seaweed and storms and frightening volumes of dark blue that never end.” WorldFeelsEndsMightLawLanguageWaterBornDarkMy OwnWonderKnowingSeeingSeaChildhoodStrangeConceptsBlueDepthCastsFishesStormBubblesFrighteningNot KnowingVolumeWhalesTastingCaptivitySeaweedBlowing UpDark Blue Author:Douglas Coupland
“I know, when I look into the eyes of my own children, the look of wonder when I speak of life back in the '60s. That's why the Rolling Stones are such a hit even in their 60s, why Dennis Hopper is so compelling, even when he's making pitches for something unhip as long-term financial planning.” KnowsLooksChildrenLongEyeSpeakTermMy OwnWonderStonesFinancialPlanningLong TermCompellingRollingRolling StonesFinancial Planning Author:Chris Matthews
“I probably wouldn't be singing if not for Michael Jackson. When I started singing, I didn't like my tone until my mom put me on to Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, so listening to the way they used their instrument helped me get more comfortable with my own.” IfsWayUsedMy OwnWonderListeningMomComfortableSingingInstrumentsMy MomTone Author:Ne-Yo
“My life in general, orderly or not, it allows me more freedom in my own writing. Sometimes I wonder, though - I have friends that sit around and just write all day. And I think it's the coolest thing.” ThinkingWritingSometimesMy OwnWonderOrderlySometimes I Wonder Author:Victoria Chang
“In fact I wonder if I should bend my own rules a little and for the sake of writing a good song it doesn't have to been so autobiographical, but that's a stupid rule to live by as some of my favourite artists' songs, they have a song that you think is about their life [which] probably even isn't, but it's a great song.” IfsThinkingShouldWritingLittlesFactsArtistSongMy OwnWonderStupidSakeLive ByFavouriteRules To Live By Author:The Rocket Summer
“Well, after Zombie Birdhouse came out, I toured behind it in the fall of 1982, into the spring, and in the summer in the Far East. At that time, I found my work self-referential; it was getting to be rock songs about a rock singer who lived a rock life on the rock road, and I was starting to wonder what I would be like to rent my own apartment, what it would be like to have a checkbook.” WellsSelfWould BeSongFallFoundMy OwnBehindsWonderRocksSummerSpringStartingEastSingersApartmentZombieRock Song Author:Iggy Pop
“The kind of sleep that I had during my own film [Certified Copy] screening in Cannes is different. It's not because of the specificity of the film. It was because of my relationship as an author to this film. Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them. Whereas this time, I didn't have that responsibility on my shoulders.” FeelsKindDifferentFilmMy OwnSleepResponsibilityWonderAudienceResponsibleShouldersCopiesAnxiousFestivalsScreeningSpecificityCannes Author:Abbas Kiarostami