Why She Writes

Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it is something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about.

~ Nicole Krauss

Source: Books and Etc. > 2014 > August > Liebster Award

Beautiful Theft

"One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is town; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest."

~ T. S. Eliot

Source: Scribblings > archive > 2012 > October > "Q&A Session with Jessica"