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Category Archives: Quotes

“Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines” by Pablo Neruda

Sometimes when you’re searching for the perfect words, someone else’s come to mind. Today’s words are not mine, though I feel their sentiment coursing through me. Today’s words belong to the legendary poet, Pablo Neruda. This piece comes from his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. Poem number twenty is shared here for your reading pleasure, as translated by W.S. Merwin. I found the poem online here. You can find the collection here.

“Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines” (Pablo Neruda, 1924)

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, ‘The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Trans. W.S. Merwin
Poem XX from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

 

 

Listening

My ears are sensitive. Not super-sensitive, like to the point where loud noises cause me pain or anything (thankfully, since I love metal/rock, and my poor girlfriend can’t take the volume at the concerts we’ve attended since we started dating), but just sensitive enough that I can usually hear people from a lot farther away than is expected. So sometimes, I just can’t help listening in on a friend when they’re talking on the phone. This is less common now than it used to be, since most of my friends are more fond of texting than talking, but it still happens from time to time. Every once in a while, when this situation comes up, there’s something said that’s absolutely brilliant. I had a couple of these gems pop up a couple of weeks ago:

“Oh, so it’s totally cool when a cat does that to a person, but when a person does it to a wall it’s creepy.”

“You have more of a passion for shih tzu’s than anyone I know.”

Now, I have no idea what was happening on the other end of the line, and I’m quite content with that. It’s more amusing that way. Sometimes, though, I think that when I’m writing, I’m listening to these one-sided conversations within my own head. It’s, as E.L. Doctorow put it, a “socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” I found this via stumbleupon a few weeks ago, and decided that I had to write something about the concept of the world around you being filled with voices that you can hear, if only you listen carefully enough. There’s something amazing about the writing process, because it lets you have those kind of talks with yourself (and/or your characters, if you so choose), and I love the idea that those voices actually have something behind them. I feel like those whispering voices are the kind of thing that you would hear when you’re wandering around inside this place. Named for a story by Jorge Luis Borges (which is sadly NOT in the copy of The Aleph and Other Stories that I’ve been borrowing from V), this library is reminiscent of things that I’ve been writing about in the past, and it makes me very happy that I’ve been crafting similar stories to those written by Borges, a man who died the year before I was born, and whose writing I’d regrettably never read until last year. I want to visit The Library of Babel, because it sounds like a place where I’d be able to get lots of writing done, as long as I was quiet and didn’t upset the librarian.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go listen to nothing for a while. Cheers!

Eleanor Crumblehulme Rocks

There is little that can be said about libraries in America today that can’t be summed up by the statement of Eleanor Crumblehulme.  “Cutting libraries in a recession is like cutting hospitals in a plague.”

I wholeheartedly support libraries everywhere. Especially this one. That is all.

Take That!

Today, I step into the tetrahedron to take on blog fatigue! That’s right, friends. A tetrahedron. Why? All the good 2D shapes were taken. Stupid Ultimate Fighting and their octagon. Stupid boxers/wrestlers and their “ring” that’s actually a square. Where does the madness end? I’d say in non-Euclidean space, but that just screws with geometry even more… But I digress.

Blog fatigue! I see it. I know that NaNoWriMo is coming up, and that many of us need to rest our weary, carpal-tunnel-plagued, thrice-cursed arms, but don’t stop writing! Life could be so much worse! You could be like this poor fellow, asking for a handout on the street:

You'd think he'd be able to talk H.G. Wells' estate out of some royalties...

We must valiantly carry on! Even if it’s some nonsensical tirade about people not writing, you must write! Even if it’s only a couple of hundred words a day! Your followers care about you, and they miss you when you don’t visit them and shower them with the glory of your written word.

I used to make fun of bloggers before I became one. That’s kind of the trend with things, isn’t it? You make fun of the people with iPhones until you manage to afford one, and then… Oh, and then… I found a quotation years ago, that I absolutely loved. “Blogging. Never before have so many with so little to say said so much to so few.” I suppose that I used to think that this was true, but you know something? Once you really get into it, it’s hard to stop. Please, friends, don’t let your blogs go without your input. I like the motivation that your post and comments provide. Plus, you know… Four days til NaNo. You can disappear then. Good luck!

 

Productivity: I Has It

Yesterday was pretty much awesome. I rocked both of my job interviews (I think) and should be hearing back from them by the end of the week. The one at Sofa Mart was one of the coolest interviews I’ve ever had. I mean, in a building full of comfy furniture, the manager just picked a couple of couches for us to sit on and chatted about where I came from, what my interests are, etc. None of the boring situational questions like “Tell us about a time when you had to do such and such a thing, and how you reacted to it.” Quite honestly, those kind of questions just irritate me as an interviewee, and I don’t feel that they are nearly as effective as getting to really know a person. I digress. My point is that my interviews both went well. I’m hoping that I can secure new employment (or additional employment, because I would like to still be able to at least sub/volunteer at the library still, I love that job) before the end of the month, because it would make the house/apartment hunt a LOT easier. Knowing where I’ll be working lets me narrow my search to a certain area, and knowing how much I’ll be making lets me know how much I can afford to spend on rent each month. Oh yeah, and in addition to those two interviews, I decided to make the most of being a former Resident Assistant at my college and a former resident of a particular apartment complex. I dropped off a copy of my résumé (I love using the accented “e” when I type that word) at my former home, thinking that, if nothing else, my experience living there would give me a slight advantage in their hunt for a new leasing agent.Productivity: awwww yeah. Today’s goals: Get down to Motor City to pick up my parts for my car, pick up some stuff from the library, and submit a story to Strange Horizons.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my time at Borders, the good and the bad. One of my coworkers, and the first person I met at the location where I would eventually work, contacted me recently, asking if I would mind providing a personal reference for him. We chatted briefly about the end of things at our store, and he told me that I missed nothing but sadness and boredom. I’ve recently come across some pictures of other stores that were closing, and I found humor, resentment, and sorrow.

Closing Borders displays empty hangers with the sign "Invisibility Cloaks: 50 Percent Off"

Pottermania persisted until the bitter end.

Pictured here: The humor. Some Borders employees decided that, with nothing else to fill the shelves, they would attempt to make their customers laugh one last time. I know that when I went back to my store the last time, I wouldn’t be going in as an employee. I wasn’t going in as a customer either. I went in to say goodbye to friends, and to a place that, despite being sold out of invisibility cloaks, still held some lingering magic.

Borders employees list things they never told you.

And the transition from hilarity to bitterness begins...Sadly, this list is accurate.

Have you ever wondered if the booksellers are judging you for every question you ask them? 98% of the time, we were. The other 2% of the time we were too busy marveling that you were one of the smart ones, and trying to secretly signal our coworkers that we had someone who actually knew what they were doing in a bookstore.

Last, but certainly not least, is this image down here. Faint of heart, turn back now. This is the sorrow.

"I cannot live without books." And now my heart has been mercilessly removed...

I found this via an article critiquing this marvelous photograph. The composition of it is sheer beauty, the content is heartbreak for people like me. As the critic said, there is nothing quite so telling about this photo as the small “World History” sign on the floor below. Say what you want about big chains and corporations ruining bookstores. The loss of so many places so loved by so many is a genuine tragedy.

I’ll do whatever is within my power to maintain the written word. Yes, I said frequently that I was considering buying an eReader device of my own. Dear customers of mine from Borders, I lied to your faces. I was a salesman. I’m sorry, I truly am, but the lie I told you allowed me to survive. I don’t think that they’re all that bad, but I have no desire to replace my collection with an electronic device. Those of you who wanted one, you might have needed some convincing, and I got bonuses to my paycheck at Christmas for every one of the Kobos I sold to you. I thank you sincerely for providing me with the income I needed to get by. Those of you who didn’t want one? I share your feelings. I said a great many things at Borders when I knew that my managers were listening. I’ll keep my books. I’ll take yours too, if you don’t want them. I’ll construct my library from the cast-off fragments of civilization.

The smell of a book

Now you know the science behind it.

I will happily make this smell my cologne of choice for the rest of my life.  I will devote my life, much as I can, to the preservation of the printed page. “A man will give his life to the turning over of a collection of books.” Gene Wolfe wrote that in Shadow of the Torturer, a novel I need to finish at some point in the future. I would love to be a person like that. Wolfe, in the same scene, wrote that “Of the trail of ink, there is no end.” I’m sure that it may seem to some that books are reaching there end, but it is not this day. Nor will it be tomorrow. I’m going to dedicate as much of my time as I can to ensuring the survival of the book.

Opus, you may be a comic strip penguin, but at least your priorities are right.

I’ll keep my “obsolete pile of pressed tree pulp,” thank you.

The Very Definition of Epic

I’m pretty sure that most of my readers already know how much I love J.R.R. Tolkien. The other day, I came across this, a brief piece that just proves even more awesomeness on the part of the man behind some of the greatest fantasy ever written. It’s not just that he was a phenomenal writer. It’s also that he was an incredible man. It would be an honor to be able to call myself comparable to a writer who has inspired me since I was in kindergarten. I’m also pretty excited about this picture, and the upcoming Hobbit films.

I think that some of you might be interested in reading this article as well. It’s pretty relevant to most of us, since the vast majority of us are writers, after our own fashion. It was originally sent to me from V, and number 13 on the list struck me as exceptionally relevant, since I’m her editor/publicist-to-be/leech of money from my soon to be famous friend, etc. I know that she’s going to do well. I’m hunting down some possible REAL editors for her at the moment. It’s good to keep busy, and have a few different options for writing projects, and I’m happy to help out someone who’s so far ahead of me in the novel-writing game.

I’m always looking out for new words, or old ones that have fallen into disuse. When I was taking classes on early literature, I absolutely loved studying Beowulf, because our professor was incredibly passionate about the language. He also taught my class on Chaucer, and I’d never met anyone quite like him. He loves to talk about his visits to Westminster Abbey to have chats with “Geoff.” His love for the language of Middle English and its predecessor showed in every lesson he taught. Because of his classes, I’ve rediscovered my own love of languages, and so, when I first heard this song, the first thing I did was look up a word that was unfamiliar to me: skald. Thanks to wikipedia, I learned that skalds were Scandinavian poets/bards, and they were responsible for most of the earliest known Norse poetry. Personally, history aside, I think it’s an awesome word. Toss in the historical aspect, and it just gets better. Skaldic poetry also includes one of my favorite concepts ever, the kenning. Now V and I have discussed this at length, but the kenning is a metaphor, usually hyphenated, found especially in Scandinavian verse, such as Beowulf. One of my favorite examples of a kenning is used to describe a character’s vast knowledge and ability to speak eloquently. “That noblest of men answered him; the leader of the warrior band unlocked his word-hoard.” Is that not the best way to show off someone’s sheer skill in speech?

Is it too much to ask to be able to want to write something like that?

Steal This Post

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery-celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from-it’s where you take them to.”

-Jim Jarmusch

Opening Lines

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun.”

“All this happened, more or less.”

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

“It was the start of the Summer of the Late Rose.”

I would love to be able to write an opening line like one of these. I find it truly amazing how opening lines set so very much of the tone of a book. Each one of these lines comes from a book or story that happens to be among my favorites. I like to consider myself fairly well read. Now I’ve heard some writers say that they don’t like to read, because it means that they might potentially be influenced by the work of other authors.

Personally, I’m all for getting influenced by other people. I have openly spoken about my various sources of inspiration. Today’s blog entry is inspired both by my girlfriend and by my friend, V. There has been talk of late of muses, and frankly, I’m not sure if I have a specific one. I like to think that the world is filled with so many amazing things, that I can never truly claim one as a single influence. Every event that has occurred in my life could potentially give rise to a story or poem. One morning I scribbled down a couple of lines of verse while sitting at a stoplight and watching the sunrise. On another, more recent occasion, I found myself crafting descriptions of Arsus’ great temple in Dhe’laza while I was sitting quietly at the funeral of a beloved family member. Inspiration strikes when and where it feels like. For me, there seems to be little connecting these moments to one another. As such, I always carry a notebook and a pen with me, or, barring that, my cell phone, since I can store something as a text message draft or even, though I hate the sound of my own voice when it’s been recorded, use the built in sound recorder to store ideas.

Waiting sucks. I mean, I know that patience is a virtue, but I’m just about out of virtue at the moment. I’m still waiting to hear back about that full time job. It’s frustrating, honestly. In the meantime, I’ve started at my 2nd part-time job, and I feel weird. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing at work. Far from it, in fact. They say that I’ve been taking to the training faster than anyone that they’ve hired in recent memory. I’m likely to get through the training in about 1/3 of the time. I feel pretty good about that, but my heart isn’t really in the job thus far. I am certain that this is because I’m still waiting to hear back about my other potential job offer. They said I’d hear from them shortly. That was Thursday afternoon, and it’s Tuesday morning now. I don’t know about you, but in my timescale, that doesn’t really constitute “shortly” in any sense. Because I’ve not heard back from them, I’m trying to juggle the schedules of two part-time jobs, one of which is nice and close to my apartment and pays a little better, and one which is a long drive and less pay, but more comfortable, due to my having worked there for over 6 months now. I’d love to hear back about this full time gig, just so I can say “I’m sorry, but I got a better offer.” *grumble*

Zach and I have been chatting. We’ve been discussing logistics of this world of his, and the ease with which people can travel from one place to another. I’ve got to make a multi-week trek across a desert sound not only possible, but survivable. I’ve also got to try to figure out some sense of how big this portion of the world is, and just how much of the world it is, if that makes sense. It does in my head. We’ve been talking about travel, and various modes of transportation that would work within the frame I’m creating. In the main pilgrimage, there will be a caravan. Some people will be walking, others riding horses or camels, others riding on sledges of sleighs being pulled by these (or similar) animals. There’s the River Highway, which would be the safest way for anyone to cross the desert, and was used once upon a time, before martial law was declared. Now the military forces of Dhe’skuva are the only ones allowed to freely traverse that road, and they will brutally enforce their right in order to protect themselves from the roving raider bands. I also love the idea of blimps (or rigid air ships) meandering about the desert. Zach says that sometimes the raiders use them, but he also says that there are stories of a brave crew of men and women who combat the raiders from the sky, saving a lucky few in exchange for the fuel and supplies the raiders carry. I’m not sure if that’s true. Zach’s a wandering minstrel of sorts. He tells lots of stories.

 

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun.”

“All this happened, more or less.”

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

“It was the start of the Summer of the Late Rose.”

I would love to be able to write an opening line like one of these. I find it truly amazing how opening lines set so very much of the tone of a book. Each one of these lines comes from a book or story that happens to be among my favorites. I like to consider myself fairly well read. Now I’ve heard some writers say that they don’t like to read, because it means that they might potentially be influenced by the work of other authors.

Personally, I’m all for getting influenced by other people. I have openly spoken about my various sources of inspiration. Today’s blog entry is inspired both by my girlfriend and by my friend, V. There has been talk of late of muses, and frankly, I’m not sure if I have a specific one. I like to think that the world is filled with so many amazing things, that I can never truly claim one as a single influence. Every event that has occurred in my life could potentially give rise to a story or poem. One morning I scribbled down a couple of lines of verse while sitting at a stoplight and watching the sunrise. On another, more recent occasion, I found myself crafting descriptions of Arsus’ great temple in Dhe’laza while I was sitting quietly at the funeral of a beloved family member. Inspiration strikes when and where it feels like. For me, there seems to be little connecting these moments to one another. As such, I always carry a notebook and a pen with me, or, barring that, my cell phone, since I can store something as a text message draft or even, though I hate the sound of my own voice when it’s been recorded, use the built in sound recorder to store ideas.

 

Waiting sucks. I mean, I know that patience is a virtue, but I’m just about out of virtue at the moment. I’m still waiting to hear back about that full time job. It’s frustrating, honestly. In the meantime, I’ve started at my 2nd

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun.”

“All this happened, more or less.”

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

“It was the start of the Summer of the Late Rose.”

I would love to be able to write an opening line like one of these. I find it truly amazing how opening lines set so very much of the tone of a book. Each one of these lines comes from a book or story that happens to be among my favorites. I like to consider myself fairly well read. Now I’ve heard some writers say that they don’t like to read, because it means that they might potentially be influenced by the work of other authors.

Personally, I’m all for getting influenced by other people. I have openly spoken about my various sources of inspiration. Today’s blog entry is inspired both by my girlfriend and by my friend, V. There has been talk of late of muses, and frankly, I’m not sure if I have a specific one. I like to think that the world is filled with so many amazing things, that I can never truly claim one as a single influence. Every event that has occurred in my life could potentially give rise to a story or poem. One morning I scribbled down a couple of lines of verse while sitting at a stoplight and watching the sunrise. On another, more recent occasion, I found myself crafting descriptions of Arsus’ great temple in Dhe’laza while I was sitting quietly at the funeral of a beloved family member. Inspiration strikes when and where it feels like. For me, there seems to be little connecting these moments to one another. As such, I always carry a notebook and a pen with me, or, barring that, my cell phone, since I can store something as a text message draft or even, though I hate the sound of my own voice when it’s been recorded, use the built in sound recorder to store ideas.

Waiting sucks. I mean, I know that patience is a virtue, but I’m just about out of virtue at the moment. I’m still waiting to hear back about that full time job. It’s frustrating, honestly. In the meantime, I’ve started at my 2nd part-time job, and I feel weird. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing at work. Far from it, in fact. They say that I’ve been taking to the training faster than anyone that they’ve hired in recent memory. I’m likely to get through the training in about 1/3 of the time. I feel pretty good about that, but my heart isn’t really in the job thus far. I am certain that this is because I’m still waiting to hear back about my other potential job offer. They said I’d hear from them shortly. That was Thursday afternoon, and it’s Tuesday morning now. I don’t know about you, but in my timescale, that doesn’t really constitute “shortly” in any sense. Because I’ve not heard back from them, I’m trying to juggle the schedules of two part-time jobs, one of which is nice and close to my apartment and pays a little better, and one which is a long drive and less pay, but more comfortable, due to my having worked there for over 6 months now. I’d love to hear back about this full time gig, just so I can say “I’m sorry, but I got a better offer.” *grumble*

Zach and I have been chatting. We’ve been discussing logistics of this world of his, and the ease with which people can travel from one place to another. I’ve got to make a multi-week trek across a desert sound not only possible, but survivable. I’ve also got to try to figure out some sense of how big this portion of the world is, and just how much of the world it is, if that makes sense. It does in my head. We’ve been talking about travel, and various modes of transportation that would work within the frame I’m creating. In the main pilgrimage, there will be a caravan. Some people will be walking, others riding horses or camels, others riding on sledges of sleighs being pulled by these (or similar) animals. There’s the River Highway, which would be the safest way for anyone to cross the desert, and was used once upon a time, before martial law was declared. Now the military forces of Dhe’skuva are the only ones allowed to freely traverse that road, and they will brutally enforce their right in order to protect themselves from the roving raider bands. I also love the idea of blimps (or rigid air ships) meandering about the desert. Zach says that sometimes the raiders use them, but he also says that there are stories of a brave crew of men and women who combat the raiders from the sky, saving a lucky few in exchange for the fuel and supplies the raiders carry. I’m not sure if that’s true. Zach’s a wandering minstrel of sorts. He tells lots of stories.

part-time job, and I feel weird. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing at work. Far from it, in fact. They say that I’ve been taking to the training faster than anyone that they’ve hired in recent memory. I’m likely to get through the training in about 1/3 of the time. I feel pretty good about that, but my heart isn’t really in the job thus far. I am certain that this is because I’m still waiting to hear back about my other potential job offer. They said I’d hear from them shortly. That was Thursday afternoon, and it’s Tuesday morning now. I don’t know about you, but in my timescale, that doesn’t really constitute “shortly” in any sense. Because I’ve not heard back from them, I’m trying to juggle the schedules of two part-time jobs, one of which is nice and close to my apartment and pays a little better, and one which is a long drive and less pay, but more comfortable, due to my having worked there for over 6 months now. I’d love to hear back about this full time gig, just so I can say “I’m sorry, but I got a better offer.” *grumble*

Zach and I have been chatting. We’ve been discussing logistics of this world of his, and the ease with which people can travel from one place to another. I’ve got to make a multi-week trek across a desert sound not only possible, but survivable. I’ve also got to try to figure out some sense of how big this portion of the world is, and just how much of the world it is, if that makes sense. It does in my head. We’ve been talking about travel, and various modes of transportation that would work within the frame I’m creating. In the main pilgrimage, there will be a caravan. Some people will be walking, others riding horses or camels, others riding on sledges of sleighs being pulled by these (or similar) animals. There’s the River Highway, which would be the safest way for anyone to cross the desert, and was used once upon a time, before martial law was declared. Now the military forces of Dhe’skuva are the only ones allowed to freely traverse that road, and they will brutally enforce their right in order to protect themselves from the roving raider bands. I also love the idea of blimps (or rigid air ships) meandering about the desert. Zach says that sometimes the raiders use them, but he also says that there are stories of a brave crew of men and women who combat the raiders from the sky, saving a lucky few in exchange for the fuel and supplies the raiders carry. I’m not sure if that’s true. Zach’s a wandering minstrel of sorts. He tells lots of stories.

Date A Girl Who Reads

“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. 

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

— Rosemary Urquico

I really wish that I had written this. This is glorious.