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 HamplPoverty didn't necessarily engender an envy of wealth; sometimes it might beget a passion for decency.
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 HamplIt is hard to sever the cords that tie us to our slavery and leave intact those that bind us to ourselves.
Patricia Hampl