“Why do human beings need to confess? Maybe if you don’t have that secret confession, you don’t have a poem — don’t even have a story. Don’t have a writer.”

— Ted Hughes

The Paris Review interview
Context: Why do human beings need to confess? Maybe if you don’t have that secret confession, you don’t have a poem — don’t even have a story. Don’t have a writer. If most poetry doesn’t seem to be in any sense confessional, it’s because the strategy of concealment, of obliquity, can be so compulsive that it’s almost entirely successful.

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Ted Hughes 55

English poet and children's writer 1930–1998

Louise Rennison book Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

Source: Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

“That’s why love stories don’t have endings! They don’t have endings because love doesn’t end.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

“Some stories don’t have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.”

Kristin Hannah book The Nightingale

Source: The Nightingale

“We don’t even have the power to build a bubble, right? That’s the ultimate story of being who we are and writing about ourselves. We don’t even have the authority to create that bubble.”

Tressie McMillan Cottom American writer, sociologist, and professor

On people of color not having the freedom to live sheltered lives in “Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom: Raising Really Good Hell for People Who Cannot” https://www.guernicamag.com/dr-tressie-mcmillan-cottom-raising-really-good-hell-for-people-who-cannot/ in Guernica Magazine (2019 Mar 20)

“Play makes a human being! Work just means you don’t have to feel guilty about playing, which I don’t feel much anyway. Mainly work means I don’t have to suffer the taunts of my friends who wonder why I’m playing as hard as I do!”

Samuel R. Delany book Neveryóna

Source: Neveryóna (1983), Chapter 9, “Of Night, Noon, Time, and Transition” (p. 238)

“In the meantime, Mosul is very, very difficult. Do you know why? Because I don’t talk about military, and I don’t talk about certain other things, you’re going to be surprised to hear that. And by the way, my whole campaign, I’d say that. So I don’t have to tell you. I don’t want to be one of these guys that say, “Yes, here’s what we’re going to do.” I don’t have to do that. I don’t have to tell you what I’m going to do in North Korea. Wait a minute. I don’t have to tell you what I’m going to do in North Korea. And I don’t have to tell you what I’m going to do with Iran. You know why? Because they shouldn’t know. And eventually, you guys are going to get tired of asking that question.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, February

“If men are good, you don’t need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don’t dare have one.”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

As quoted in Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer, L.K. Samuels, editor, Freeland Press and Rampart Institute, Santa Ana: CA, Chap. 5, p. 70

“Do things right the first time. If you don’t have time to do a job once, you certainly don’t have time to do it again.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 58.
On Doing Things Right

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Eric Schmidt (1955) software engineer, businessman

CNBC interview, 3 Dec 2009, quoted in Google CEO on Privacy http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/07/google-ceo-on-privacy-if_n_383105.html (18 Mar 2010).

“How do I know that I don’t need what I want? I don’t have it.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

“Why do human beings need to confess? Maybe if you don’t have that secret confession, you don’t have a poem — don’t even have a story. Don’t have a writer.”

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