A Quote by Mark Vonnegut
Note to self: being Kurt's son, being an ex-mental patient, getting into Harvard, having written a book, and being a doctor are all things that in and of themselves do not make a life. If you lean on them too hard, you'll find that there's not much there. But if you add up a lot of things that aren't in and of themselves enough, it almost starts to add up to something.
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The honey doesn't taste so good once it is being eaten; the goal doesn't mean so much once it is reached; the reward is no so rewarding once it has been given. If we add up all the rewards in our lives, we won't have very much. But if we add up the spaces *between* the rewards, we'll come up with quite a bit. And if we add up the rewards *and* the spaces, then we'll have everything - every minute of the time that we spent.
Right now, women's worth is being quantified by how they look and their Instagrams and likes. That's all so self-created, so why are we trying to add to that? It's hard enough to be a young woman, or man, growing up and trying to find your identity, rather than having a whole Internet of people weighing in on it. It makes me sad for those kids.
Any time you add something to your game, you still have to find ways to improve, so I'm still studying the game and trying to find out ways to increase how we use me on the floor. You're not being complacent, not falling back and floating around the perimeter too much, figuring out when to attack. I'm trying to find that balance between attacking and spotting up and things like that.
Women don't give up things. They don't give up responsibilities. They add new things. They exhaust themselves and still don't give anything up. And. And. And. And. And they do all these other things at the same time, which can be exhausting.
I'm always trying to find 'connections' between things. That art is the juxtaposition of a lot of things that seem unrelated but add up to something recognizable.
Im always trying to find connections between things. That art is the juxtaposition of a lot of things that seem unrelated but add up to something recognizable.
At midlife, you're pregnant with the best self you can be - someone who has learned enough from both successes and failures to add up to a fine human being.
People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.
Being a doctor, I worry that the patient may be uncomfortable about sharing something. It could be sexual dysfunction, an eating disorder, depression, domestic violence - these are serious topics many people don't want to talk about. I'll try to follow up with questions like: How are things at home? How's work? But we don't always have time to probe. Don't be afraid to bring up the important things going on in your life, even if they don't feel 'medical.' Your doctor would rather know than not know.
I suddenly thought about being backstage, and I think it shocks you to meet the people you shared your bedrooms with. And a lot of them either take themselves too seriously or don't know how to take themselves at all. But I wanted to be aware in a very sarcastic way that every song I've written has probably been written about 12-16 times before. And doing that makes it very hard for me to accept serious singer-songwriters in the world, the up-and-comers, the ones who are out there who let that define their every move, who live and die and breathe for it. It's a bit of a tragedy, I think.
After a while, being so honest and so vulnerable on the page ends up affecting my own kind of self possession in the world, because I am not afraid of myself and my own thoughts. I think so much of being a woman, of being a social being, of being polite, is quieting those thoughts. There's so much we try not to say as we go through the day. There's a lot of tempering and self-editing. It is a relief to make writing that space where I don't need to do that.
I usually know when something is going to end up being catastrophic but I don't really care. I find that the things that end up being earth shattering are the things that give me the most thrill.
A flash of resentment. It's hard enough being alive, trying to survive in the world and find your place in it, to do the things you need to do to get by, without wondering if the thing you just did, whatever it was, was worth someone having...if not died, then having given up her life. It wasn't fair. "Life's not fair," said Ginnie, as if I had spoken aloud.
The promise of God is that you are His son. Her offspring. Its likeness. His equal. Ah...here is where you get hung up. You can accept "His son," "offspring," "likeness," but you recoil at being called "His equal." It is too much to accept. Too much bigness, too much wonderment-too much responsibility. For if you are God's equal, that means nothing is being done to you-and all things are created by you. There can be no more victims and no more villains-only outcomes of your thought about a thing.
Write. No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write. On you go.
And most of all, books. They were, in and of themselves, reasons to stay alive. Every book written is the product of a human mind in a particular state. Add all the books together and you get the end sum of humanity. Every time I read a great book I felt I was reading a kind of map, a treasure map, and the treasure I was being directed to was in actual fact myself.
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