I wanted to say something to cheer her up. I had a feeling that cheering her up might be a lot of work. I was thinking of how sometimes, trying to say the right thing to people, itโs like some kind of brain surgery, and you have to tweak exactly the right part of the lobe. Except with talking, itโs more like brain surgery with old, rusted skewers and things, maybe like those things you use to eat lobster, but brown. And you have to get exactly the right place, and youโre touching around in the brain but the patient, she keeps jumping and saying, โOw.
Matthew Tobin AndersonI write for teens partially to work out whatever it was that I needed to from my own teenage years.
Matthew Tobin AndersonI've always enjoyed that kind of thing - thinking about the production of narrative and why it is that when we read a novel, we don't notice the fact that someone who might be very close-mouthed or tight-lipped is perfectly willing to tell us a story in 600 or 700 pages.
Matthew Tobin AndersonI am messaging you to say that I love you, and that you're completely wrong about me thinking you're stupid. I always thought you could teach me things. I was always waiting. You're not like the others. You say things that no one expects you to. You think you're stupid. You want to be stupid. But you're someone people could learn from.
Matthew Tobin AndersonI don't know when they first had feeds. Like maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that, they had to use their hands and their eyes. Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe.
Matthew Tobin Anderson