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A Writer's Wit: Severa Sarduy

2/25/2021

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I write only in order to make myself well. I write in an attempt to become normal, to be like everybody else, even though it's obvious I am not. I am a neurotic creature, a prey to phobias, burdened with obsessions and anxieties. And instead of going to a psychoanalyst or committing suicide or abandoning myself to drink and drugs, I write. That's my therapy.
​Severa Sarduy
Author of Beach Birds
Born February 25, 1937
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S. Sarduy
TOMORROW: My Book World | Annie Proulx's Barkskins
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A Writer's Wit: George Moore

2/24/2021

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The wrong way always seems the more reasonable.
​George Moore
Author of Hail and Farewell
Born February 24, 1852
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G. Moore
FRIDAY: My Book World | Annie Proulx's Barkskins
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A Writer's Wit: W. E. B. Du Bois

2/23/2021

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Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.
​W. E. B. Du Bois
Author of Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880
Born February 23, 1868
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W. E. B. Du Bois
FRIDAY: My Book World | Annie Proulx's Barkskins
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A Writer's Wit: Toni Morrison

2/18/2021

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I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man.
​Toni Morrison
Author of Paradise
Born February 18, 1931
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T. Morrison
TOMORROW: My Book World | Martin Amis's Inside Story
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A Writer's Wit: Dorothy Canfield Fisher

2/17/2021

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One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young.
​Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Author of The Squirrel-Cage
Born February 17, 1879
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D. C. Fisher
FRIDAY: My Book World | Martin Amis's Inside Story
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A Writer's Wit: Richard Ford

2/16/2021

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Writing is the only thing I’ve ever done with persistence, except for being married.
​Richard Ford
Author of Rock Springs
Born February 16, 1944
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R. Ford
FRIDAY: My Book World | Martin Amis's Inside Story
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Langella: King of Dropped Names

2/12/2021

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A WRITER'S WIT
The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.
​Judy Blume
Author of Forever
Born February 12, 1938
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J. Blume

My Book World

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Langella, Frank. Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them. New York: Harper, 2013.
 
In Langella’s “Cast of Characters”—notable people he has known throughout his long acting career—he lists them in the order of their “disappearance” from the earth. The first personality is Marilyn Monroe, whom he “meets” in a fortuitous incident as a kid in which he exchanges waves with the woman as she enters a limousine. Further in to the book Langella describes his relationship with John F. Kennedy. This episode also begins his relationship with Paul and Bunny Mellon and their daughter whom he has met first by way of his youthful thespian activities in summer stock. Many of his acquaintances, like these, wash back and forth over one another until he ends his book by way of his long friendship with Bunny Mellon who lives to be 103. 
 
Langella is at turns generous and blunt about the talents of these people. With Rita Hayworth he can’t possibly heap the praise high enough. By his account, Bette Davis is an arrogant bitch. Raul Julia is a prince, almost a brother to Frank. Paul Newman is a so-so actor who can’t quite reach down deep enough in to himself to grab the stuff of which great acting is made.
 
The book is also one of confession. Langella, throughout his life, though retaining threads of friendship with hundreds of people, manages to let other relationships fall off. In a stunning chapter, one learns of Elizabeth Taylor’s deep insecurities, about living out her life alone. He tells of his own arrogance when he treats British actor Deborah Kerr dismissively over a long period of time—until it is too late.
 
If readers are to learn anything from Langella’s book it may be that no matter what road we take in life, we owe a debt of gratitude to those who have helped us along the way; it behooves us to help the sick and needy; and it pays to be kind and polite to nearly everyone, saving the stinging but measured remark for the few who may deserve it. The book is now over a decade old, but the content is timeless. 

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Martin Amis's Inside Story

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A Writer's Wit: Sandra Tsing Loh

2/11/2021

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Some thirty years after graduation, I look at my Caltech classmates and conclude that math whizzes do not take over the world.
​Sandra Tsing Loh
Author of The Madwoman in the Volvo
Born February 11, 1962
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S. Tsing Loh
TOMORROW: My Book World | F. Langella's Dropped Names
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A Writer's Wit: Laura Dern

2/10/2021

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Stay true to your own voice, and don't worry about needing to be liked or what anybody else thinks. Keep your eyes on your own paper.
​Laura Dern
Actor in HBO's Big Little Lies
Born February 10, 1967
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L. Dern
FRIDAY: My Book World | Frank Langella's Dropped Names
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A Writer's Wit: J. M. Coetzee

2/9/2021

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The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in one's more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint.
​J. M. Coetzee
Author of Disgrace
Born February 9, 1940
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J. M. Coetzee
FRIDAY: My Book World | Frank Langella's Dropped Names
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A Writer's Wit: Gretel Ehrlich

1/21/2021

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A tree is a thought, an obstruction stopping the flow of wind and light, trapping water, housing insects, birds, and animals, and breathing in and out. How treelike the human, how human the tree.
​Gretel Ehrlich
Author of This Cold Heaven:
​Seven Seasons in Greenland

Born January 21, 1946
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G. Ehrlich
TOMORROW: My Book World |
​Steven Millhauser's The Knife Thrower
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A Writer's Wit: Robert Olen Butler

1/20/2021

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All plot comes from the character's trying to get something, to achieve something, wanting, desiring, longing.
​Robert Olen Butler
Author of Perfume River 
Born January 20, 1945
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R. O. Butler
FRIDAY: My Book World | Steven Millhauser's The Knife Thrower
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A Writer's Wit: Patricia Highsmith

1/19/2021

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I can't write if someone else is in the house, not even the cleaning woman.
​Patricia Highsmith
Author of The Talented Mr. Ripley
Born January 19, 1921
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P. Highsmith
FRIDAY: My Book World | Steven Millhauser's The Knife Thrower
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A Writer's Wit: Maureen Dowd

1/14/2021

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Wooing the press is an exercise roughly akin to picnicking with a tiger. You might enjoy the meal, but the tiger always eats last.
​Maureen Dowd
Author of The Year of Voting Dangerously
Born January 14, 1952
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M. Dowd
TOMORROW: My Book World | Barack Obama's A Promised Land
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A Writer's Wit: Edmund White

1/13/2021

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The one thing that is sort of sneered at and not really believed is bisexuality. Any bisexual man is just seen as a closeted gay man. That shows how narrow-minded people are. The other thing that's totally neglected and which nobody approves of is celibacy. People again assume that you're just repressing something.
​Edmund White
Author of The Beautiful Room Is Empty
Born January 13, 1940
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E. White
FRIDAY: My Book World | Barack Obama's A Promised Land
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A Writer's Wit: EdmunD Burke

1/12/2021

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It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
​Edmund Burke
Author of Reflections on the French Revolution
Born January 12, 1729
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E. Burke
FRIDAY: My Book World | Barack Obama's A Promised Land
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A Writer's Wit: Joyce Maynard

11/5/2020

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It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.
​Joyce Maynard
Author of The Best of Us: A Memoir
Born November 5, 1953
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J. Maynard
TOMORROW: My Book World | Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow
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A Writer's Wit: ​Shakuntala Devi

11/4/2020

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Why do children dread mathematics? Because of the wrong approach. Because it is looked at as a subject.
​Shakuntala Devi
Author of Figuring the Joy of Numbers
Born November 4, 1929
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S. Devi
FRIDAY: My Book World | Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow
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A Writer's Wit: Martin Cruz Smith

11/3/2020

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The great thing about being a writer is that you are always recreating yourself.
​Martin Cruz Smith
Author of Gorky Park
Born November 3, 1942
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M. C. Smith
FRIDAY: My Book World | Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow
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A Writer's Wit: Caroline Paul

10/29/2020

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GPS works great. I recommend it for all cat owners who want to know what their cats do when they're not there, if you can stand the ridicule from your friends.
​Caroline Paul
Author of 
Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology
Born October 29, 1963
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C. Paul
TOMORROW: My Book World | Charles C. Edwards's Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America
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A Writer's Wit: Evelyn Waugh

10/28/2020

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One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.
​Evelyn Waugh
Author of Brideshead Revisited
Born on October 28, 1903
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E. Waugh
FRIDAY: My Book World | Charles C. Edwards's Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America
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A Writer's Wit: A. N. Wilson

10/27/2020

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If you know somebody is going to be awfully annoyed by something you write, that's obviously very satisfying, and if they howl with rage or cry, that's honey.
​A. N. Wilson
Author of The Mystery of Charles Dickens
Born October 27, 1950
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A. N. Wilson
FRIDAY: My Book World | George C. Edwards's Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America
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A Writer's Wit: Doris Lessing

10/22/2020

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In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.
​Doris Lessing
Author of The Summer Before the Dark
Born October 22, 1919
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D. Lessing
TOMORROW: My Book World | Fiona Hill's Mr. Putin
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A Writer's Wit: Ursula K. Le Guin

10/21/2020

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If you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that.
​Ursula K. Le Guin
Author of Farthest Shore
Born October 21, 1929
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U. K. Le Guin
FRIDAY: My Book World | Fiona Hill's Mr. Putin
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A Writer's Wit: Arthur Rimbaud

10/20/2020

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I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am there.
​Arthur Rimbaud
Author of A Season in Hell
Born October 20, 1854
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A. Rimbaud
FRIDAY: My Book World | Fiona Hill's Mr. Putin
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