A Quote from Kurt Vonnegut

> Do not do so as an academic critic, nor as a person drunk on art, nor as a barbarian in the literary market place. Do so as a sensitive person who has a few practical hunches about how stories can succeed or fail. -Kurt Vonnegut [http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/11/kurt_vonnegut_term_paper_assignment_from_the_iowa_writers_workshop.html] My take: Don’t do things in a cerebral vacuum; don’t assign arbitrary meaning, presuming the artist has (or doesn’t have) a license to kill; an

It's Raining in Love by Richard Braughtigan

I don’t know what it is, but I distrust myself when I start to like a girl a lot. It makes me nervous. I don’t say the right things or perhaps I start to examine, evaluate, compute what I am saying. If I say, “Do you think it’s going to rain?” and she says, “I don’t know,” I start thinking:    Does she really like me? In other words I get a little creepy. A friend of mine once said, “It’s twenty times better to be friends with someone than it is to be in love

"The Invitation" by Oriah

Was at a wedding and the officiant read this poem during the ceremony. I thought it was really powerful, so I asked her for the source. Thought I’d share it here… The Invitation by Oriah > It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive. It

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> I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more. … What I dread is the isolation. … There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready. -Maurice Sendak on Fresh Air in 2011. [all interviews with Sendak here [http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152248901/fresh-air-remembers-author-maurice-sendak] ] (via nprfreshair

Einstein's Watch - An Exploration of Empathy

> A post by reddit user, johnnynottoscale, originally found here: http://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/qn1bu/einsteins_watch_an_exploration_of_empathy/ Quoted here and shared with author’s explicit permission. em·pa·thy/ˈempəTHē/ : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an object

No. Fucks. Given.

Written by some random dude on the internets: Have you ever played any RPGS, like Final Fantasy? You, real life you, are the protagonist of this story. Everyone, and I mean everyone else is a [Non Player Character]. Your mom is an NPC, your boss is an NPC, every stranger on the street is an NPC. Hell, even your shitty little cat is an NPC. Now, how much do the NPCs really affect you? NPCs are never the story, my friend, they only exist to help you move the story along. Your story. So if yo