I know that the Bible is a special kind of book, but I find it as seductive as any other. If I am not careful, I can begin to mistake the words on the page for the realities they describe. I can begin to love the dried ink marks on the page more than I love the encounters that gave rise to them.
What I noticed at Grace-Calvary is the same thing I notice whenever people aim to solve their conflicts with one another by turning to the bible: defending the dried ink marks on the page becomes more vital than defending their neighbor. As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God. In the words of Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas, 'People of the Book risk putting the book above people.
We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.
One of the things I love about the Bible is that it's page-by-page proof that God is not just a "broad strokes" kind of creator; God is in the details. So much so that we're told nothing is hidden from him. He sees everything; he's the beginning and the end. There's no greater authority on your life than the one who gave you your life.
I am not a person to say the words out loud
I think them strongly, or let them hunger from the page:
know it from there, from my silence, from somewhere other
than my tongue
the quiet love
the silent rage.
Stories never really end...even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page.
Writing a screenplay needs to be more than words on a page - and by the way, I think the words on the page are something you have to try to execute on the highest level you can; I'm not dismissing that by any regard.
I studied every page of this book, and I didn't find enough love to fill a salt shaker. God is not love in the Bible; God is vengeance, from Alpha to Omega.
Well, I'm a slow writer. For me, a good day is a page, maybe a page and a half. I'd love to be more efficient, but I am not.
To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing... When I find myself facing a blank page, that’s always going through my head. What I capture in spite of myself interests me more than my own ideas.
In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my 'friends.'
One of the humbling things about having written more than one novel is the sense that every time you begin, that new empty page does not know who you are.
I am the signet which marks the page where the revolution has been stopped; but when I die it will turn the page and resume its course.
We are thickly layered, page lying upon page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding.
We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.
The pen is very quick for getting stuff from your brain to the page. I can do hieroglyphics in the margin. There are days when I really enjoy the flow of ink. I mean, nice pen, ink straight on to the page.