Reading is Everything

"Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss."

- Nora Ephron

The Idiot Culture

"We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot subculture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal."

- Carl Bernstein

Doug Wright's On It

"I wish my moderate Republican friends would simply be honest. They all say they’re voting for Romney because of his economic policies (tenuous and ill-formed as they are), and that they disagree with him on gay rights. Fine. Then look me in the eye, speak with a level clear voice, and say, 'My taxes and take-home pay mean more than your fundamental civil rights, the sanctity of your marriage, your right to visit an ailing spouse in the hospital, your dignity as a citizen of this country, your healthcare, your right to inherit, the mental welfare and emotional well-being of your youth, and your very personhood.' It’s like voting for George Wallace during the Civil Rights movements, and apologizing for his racism. You’re still complicit. You’re still perpetuating anti-gay legislation and cultural homophobia. You don’t get to walk away clean, because you say you 'disagree' with your candidate on these issues."

- Doug Wright, Pulitzer and Tony-winning playwright

Text Message of the Day

"Well, on my way to a Gatsby-themed party in Connecticut to do drugs and play croquet. I feel like I'm wearing your life's boner, so if you have any requests while I'm there, make them known and I'll make them happen." - text message from a friend this afternoon

My Mom & Mad Men

"Don Draper has a past with another name, his wife is zombie-like, Peter Campbell makes $75 per week, $35000 a year. What a different time." - my mom, who just started watching Mad Men

Steve Martin Gets It

"Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they

can have an excuse to drink alcohol." - Steve Martin

Gay

"If Herman Cain wants proof that sexual orientation isn't a choice, then he should just say, 'Hey, I like women. Could I choose not to?' When he realizes he can't, shouldn't that be the end of the argument right there?" - Kevin Ryder, from Kevin & Bean (surprising, right?)

Thank You, John Waters

Cake & Jazz Music

"Who needs full-time jobs anyway? Cake and jazz music? That’s what life’s all about." - Celeste Hoang

He Gave Murder Back To The People

"[Dashiell Hammett] took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley... [He] gave murder back to the kind of people who do it for a reason, not just to provide a corpse; and with means at hand, not with hand wrought dueling pistols, curare, and tropical fish.”

— Raymond Chandler (in The Simple Art of Murder)


After years of watching, rewatching and adoring The Thin Man film series, I'm finally getting around to reading the book.

The Craft of Writing is a Failing Plane

"Being a writer is like being the last to evacuate a failing plane. You're fucked, but women will dig you." - Grant

Oh, The Humanity...And The Boredom

"The boredom bores me." - James Park