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- “That’s the way I work: I try to imagine what I would like to see.” — Sofia Coppola
- “I’m very concerned that we don’t make movies that are original anymore.” — Robert Zemeckis
- “Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it.” — Stevie Wonder
- “I was a sinister child, lazy and cynical.” — Eve Babitz
- Elvis takes New Orleans: talking King Creole on the Guide for the Film Fanatic podcast
- Miscast? Mayyyybe.
- “I don’t care how afraid I may be inside — I do what I think I should.” — Katharine Hepburn
- “I think a fear of portraying something negatively ends up creating more stereotypes.” — Sophia Takal
- “My dear child, I’m sure we shall be allowed to laugh in Heaven!” — Edward Lear
- “I know that for myself, what is deeper than I understand is often the most pertinent to me and the most lasting.” — Lorine Niedecker
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- sheila on “You are not acting so much as being. The result is realism.” — Gary Cooper
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- Maddy on “Maybe it’s a generational thing but I never wanted to be the best black dancer in the world. I wanted to be the best.” — Judith Jamison
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- mutecypher on “A lot of people try to equate me with guys like Frankie Avalon and Fabian, but in the old days I sold a lot of records over a period of time, and you can’t sustain that by being just another pretty face.” — Ricky Nelson
- sheila on “A lot of people try to equate me with guys like Frankie Avalon and Fabian, but in the old days I sold a lot of records over a period of time, and you can’t sustain that by being just another pretty face.” — Ricky Nelson
- sheila on “You are not acting so much as being. The result is realism.” — Gary Cooper
- mutecypher on “A lot of people try to equate me with guys like Frankie Avalon and Fabian, but in the old days I sold a lot of records over a period of time, and you can’t sustain that by being just another pretty face.” — Ricky Nelson
- Maddy on “You are not acting so much as being. The result is realism.” — Gary Cooper
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: As You Like It
- mutecypher on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: As You Like It
- sheila on “A woman came up to me after one of the screenings with tears pouring down her face and sobbed, You’ve defined my entire life for me on the screen.” –Jill Clayburgh
- Brett Hetherington on The Books: A Collection of Essays, ‘Charles Dickens’, by George Orwell
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Category Archives: Books
“I don’t think my books should be in prison libraries.” — Patricia Highsmith
It’s Patricia Highsmith’s birthday today. He wouldn’t have killed someone just to save Derwatt Ltd. or even Bernard, Tom supposed. Tom had killed Murchison because Murchison had realized, in the cellar, that he had impersonated Derwatt. Tom had killed Murchison … Continue reading
“Precision and accuracy are necessary for both white and black writers. ‘A black aesthetic’ should not be an excuse for sloppy writing.” — poet and publisher Dudley Randall
“How else can a black writer write than out of his black experience? Yet what we tend to overlook is that our common humanity makes it possible to write a love poem, for instance, without a word of race, or … Continue reading
“I look back on my life and draw one great generalization: IT WAS MY REFUSAL TO TAKE CAUTIOUS ADVICE THAT MADE ME.” — Jack London
“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent … Continue reading
2025 Books Read
I ended last year with a flurry of Oscar Wilde’s short stories, declaring I’d read all the plays in 2025. I mean, there were only five, sadly, due to the homophobic violence of his own society. I know these plays … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Austria, books read, Charles Lamb, children's books, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, David Lynch, Dubravka Ugrešić, England, essays, fiction, France, Frankenstein, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hungary, Ireland, Jane Austen, Janet Malcolm, John Keats, Lord Byron, Mark Danielewski, Mary Gaitskill, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Memoirs, nonfiction, Oscar Wilde, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Roald Dahl, Robert Kaplan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Russia, sci-fi, Scotland, scripts, Spain, The Beatles, Twin Peaks, William Shakespeare, Yugoslavia
12 Comments
“Carelessness on the part of revolutionaries has always been the best aid the police have.” — Victor Serge
Ever since my late-in-the-day discovery of Victor Serge (whose birthday it is today), a man I should have discovered much MUCH earlier, considering my interest in totalitarian regimes / dissident voices / revolution / Russia – I have read as … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged fiction, Memoirs, nonfiction, Russia, Victor Serge, war
2 Comments
“The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing.” — Jean Toomer
Poet/novelist Jean Toomer was born on this day in 1894. He died in 1967. He saw some shit. Toomer’s family tree encompasses the diversity of pre-and-post-Civil War South: slaves, freemen, black, white. His father, Nathan Toomer, was born into slavery. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, fiction, Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, poetry
2 Comments
“It is a pity that the poet should be compelled to impart interest and force to his subject, instead of receiving them from it.” — poet and critic Matthew Arnold
“My poems represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day as people become conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind is, and … Continue reading
“The people must grant a hearing to the best poets they have, else they will never have better.” — Harriet Monroe
“I started in early with Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, with Dickens and Thackeray; and always the book-lined library gave me a friendly assurance of companionship with lively and interesting people, gave me friends of the spirit to ease my loneliness.” – … Continue reading
“I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.” — Rebecca West
It’s her birthday today. It is hard to talk about her without referencing the generations of writers she inspired, all of whom admit their debt. Robert Kaplan is the most open about it (in Balkan Ghosts, which launched his career, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Austria, Balkans, D.H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford, France, George Bernard Shaw, Germany, Katherine Mansfield, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, nonfiction, politics, Rebecca West, Roman empire, Russia, Serbia, W.B. Yeats, war, Warren Beatty, Yugoslavia
21 Comments
“Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.” — W.H. Auden on Jane Austen
“The little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush.” — Jane Austen on her writing In 2020 – which feels like it was 1,000 years ago, I reviewed the new film adaptation … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, fiction, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, Truman Capote, W.H. Auden
6 Comments