Maybe being oneself is an acquired taste. For a writer it's a big deal to bow--or kneel or get knocked down--to the fact that you are going to write your own books and not somebody else's. Not even those books of the somebody else you thought it was your express business to spruce yourself up to be.
Patricia HamplYou canโt put much on paper before you betray your secret self, try as you will to keep things civil.
Patricia HamplWe do not, after all, simply have experience; we are entrusted with it. We must do something--make something--with it. A story, we sense is the only possible habitation for the burden of our witnessing.
Patricia HamplThe paradox: there can be no pilgrimage without a destination, but the destination is also not the real point of the endeavor. Not the destination, but the willingness to wander in pursuit characterizes pilgrimage. Willingness: to hear the tales along the way, to make the casual choices of travel, to acquiesce even to boredom. That's pilgrimage -- a mind full of journey.
Patricia Hampl