I have an impulse to write all over the orange walls- I need an alphabet of endings ripped out of books, of hands pulled off of clocks, of cold stones, of shoes filled with nothing but wind.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a yearning for creative expression through writing and the desire to capture fleeting moments.
In this quote, Jandy Nelson conveys the intense desire to create and express oneself through writing. The imagery of 'orange walls' and 'hands pulled off of clocks' evokes a sense of urgency and the ephemeral nature of time and inspiration, suggesting that the act of writing is a way to immortalize experiences and emotions that are often transient.
In practice
During a writing workshop to inspire creativity, one might use this quote to encourage participants to express their unique perspectives.
Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of peopleMaybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time. Hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, step up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive into the world, as we make things, as we break things.
Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes part of you, step for step, breath for breath.
... if you're someone who knows the worst thing can happen at any time, aren't you also someone who knows the best thing can happen at any time too?
All her knowledge is gone now. Everything she ever learned, or heard, or saw. Her particular way of looking at Hamlet or daisies or thinking about love, all her private intricate thoughts, her inconsequential secret musings – they’re gone too. I heard this expression once: Each time someone dies, a library burns. I’m watching it burn right to the ground.
It's such a colossal effort not to be haunted by what's lost, but to be enchanted by what was.
My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.
I try to have each book be an antidote to the one before.
That's what's nice about directing a film and having it done: There's nothing more I can do about it. It's done. That's it. All I can do is let it go and hope that people are kind to it.
But I always need to identify with a character to write about him or her - and by 'identify,' I mean see the world through that person's eyes and have a strong sense of the inner logic of their acts and decisions, wacky or wrongheaded though they might be. In that sense, I think there's some of me in all of them.
A picture is poem without words.
Books are seldom useful unless they are also beautiful.
When you try to unravel something you've written, you belittle it in a way. It was created as a mystery.
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