February 18, 2013
Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.
Isabel Allende on the writing process
January 30, 2013
January 23, 2013
January 22, 2013
Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. / You must travel it by yourself. / It is not far. It is within reach. / Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. / Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
December 12, 2012
October 30, 2012
If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
Steinbeck, in a 1958 letter to his son, Thom
October 29, 2012

And your way, is it really your way?

[…]

What, moreover, can you call your own? The house you live in, the food you swallow, the clothes you wear — you neither built the house nor raised the food nor made the clothes.

[…]

The same goes for your ideas. You moved into them ready-made.”

Henry Miller, from Stand Still LIke The Hummingbird
October 14, 2012
October 13, 2012
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
Marcus Aurelius
September 25, 2012
I find it endearing that Brazilians find new ways to say my name.
“Toddy” — also a famous Brazilian chocolate milk — is the most common I hear about town.  Closer friends who now get the joke call me Toddynho.
Whether I like it or not, the nickname has started to stick.

I find it endearing that Brazilians find new ways to say my name.

“Toddy” — also a famous Brazilian chocolate milk — is the most common I hear about town.  Closer friends who now get the joke call me Toddynho.

Whether I like it or not, the nickname has started to stick.

September 24, 2012
We believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people… This is the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing next to us.
Anaïs Nin
September 16, 2012

“Sampa” by Caetano Veloso

Alguma coisa acontece no meu coração
Que só quando cruza a Ipiranga e a avenida São João
É que quando eu cheguei por aqui eu nada entendi
Da dura poesia concreta de tuas esquinas
Da deselegância discreta de tuas meninas

Ainda não havia para mim Rita Lee
A tua mais completa tradução
Alguma coisa acontece no meu coração
Que só quando cruza a Ipiranga e a avenida São João

Quando eu te encarei frente a frente não vi o meu rosto
Chamei de mau gosto o que vi, de mau gosto, mau gosto
É que Narciso acha feio o que não é espelho
E à mente apavora o que ainda não é mesmo velho
Nada do que não era antes quando não somos mutantes

E foste um difícil começo
Afasto o que não conheço
E quem vende outro sonho feliz de cidade
Aprende depressa a chamar-te de realidade
Porque és o avesso do avesso do avesso do avesso

Do povo oprimido nas filas, nas vilas, favelas
Da força da grana que ergue e destrói coisas belas
Da feia fumaça que sobe, apagando as estrelas
Eu vejo surgir teus poetas de campos, espaços
Tuas oficinas de florestas, teus deuses da chuva

Pan-Américas de Áfricas utópicas, túmulo do samba
Mais possível novo quilombo de Zumbi
E os novos baianos passeiam na tua garoa
E novos baianos te podem curtir numa boa

August 11, 2012
Writing is both mask and unveiling.
E.B. White
July 27, 2012
Chicago Skyline from the South Side

Chicago Skyline from the South Side

July 24, 2012