“This is why I shall not tell you in this story about all the days when nothing happened. You will not catch me saying, 'thus the sad days passed slowly by'--or 'the years rolled on their weary course'--or 'time went on'--because it is silly; of course time goes on--whether you say so or not. So I shall just tell you the nice, interesting parts--and in between you will understand that we had our meals and got up and went to bed, and dull things like that.”

“You know what I can't understand? You have all these people telling you all the time how great you are, smart and funny and talented and all that, I mean endlessly, I've been telling you for years. So why don't you believe it? why do you think people say that stuff, Em? Do you think it's a conspiracy, people secretly ganging up to be nice about you?”

“Now," those Plumbago lips say, "You are going to tell me your story like you just did. Write it all down. Tell that story over and over. Tell me your sad-assed story all night." That Brandy queen points a long bony finger at me."When you understand, " Brandy says, "that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can crumble it up and throw your past in the trashcan," Brandy says,"then we'll figure out who you're going to be.”

“I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged...I had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out.”

“(from A Love Story, Eight Takes)

8
As it turns out, there is a wrong way to tell this story.
I was wrong to tell you how multi-true everything is,

when it would be truer to say nothing.
I've invented so much and prevented more.

But I'd like to talk with you about other things,
in absolute quiet. In extreme context.

To see you again, isn't love revision?
It could have gone so many ways.

This just one of the ways it went.
Tell me another.”

“What I can't understand is why the silly things you say makes so much sense.""I'll tell you why," said Papa Dima. "It's because the best idea is the idea you least expect. And the unexpected always seems silly at first.”