The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.
The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.
Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,†then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose...
...Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.
We love men because they can never fake orgasms, even if they wanted to.
Because they write poems, songs, and books in our honor.
Because they never understand us, but they never give up.
Because they can see beauty in women when women have long ceased to see any beauty in themselves.
Because they come from little boys.
Because they can churn out long, intricate, Machiavellian, or incredibly complex mathematics and physics equations, but they can be comparably clueless when it comes to women.
Because they are incredible lovers and never rest until we’re happy.
Because they elevate sports to religion.
Because they’re never afraid of the dark.
Because they don’t care how they look or if they age.
Because they persevere in making and repairing things beyond their abilities, with the naïve self-assurance of the teenage boy who knew everything.
Because they never wear or dream of wearing high heels.
Because they’re always ready for sex.
Because they’re like pomegranates: lots of inedible parts, but the juicy seeds are incredibly tasty and succulent and usually exceed your expectations.
Because they’re afraid to go bald.
Because you always know what they think and they always mean what they say.
Because they love machines, tools, and implements with the same ferocity women love jewelry.
Because they go to great lengths to hide, unsuccessfully, that they are frail and human.
Because they either speak too much or not at all to that end.
Because they always finish the food on their plate.
Because they are brave in front of insects and mice.
Because a well-spoken four-year old girl can reduce them to silence, and a beautiful 25-year old can reduce them to slobbering idiots.
Because they want to be either omnivorous or ascetic, warriors or lovers, artists or generals, but nothing in-between.
Because for them there’s no such thing as too much adrenaline.
Because when all is said and done, they can’t live without us, no matter how hard they try.
Because they’re truly as simple as they claim to be.
Because they love extremes and when they go to extremes, we’re there to catch them.
Because they are tender they when they cry, and how seldom they do it.
Because what they lack in talk, they tend to make up for in action.
Because they make excellent companions when driving through rough neighborhoods or walking past dark alleys.
Because they really love their moms, and they remind us of our dads.
Because they never care what their horoscope, their mother-in-law, nor the neighbors say.
Because they don’t lie about their age, their weight, or their clothing size.
Because they have an uncanny ability to look deeply into our eyes and connect with our heart, even when we don’t want them to.
Because when we say “I love you†they ask for an explanation.
If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.
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