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September 1995What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.
Henry David Thoreau
Larry couldn’t stop thinking of Mrs. Foster. He thought he must be in love with her. He never raised his hand in any class except hers. The other teachers didn’t seem to care whether he answered questions or not.
By J. W. MajorSeptember 1995Even the page says, / Don’t spill that ink / on this unspoiled white. / Your scribbles are / so broken, your words / so bald, so patent, / they reveal your / mediocrity.
—from “Hierophant”
By Cedar KoonsAugust 1995i keep sending query letters to publishers and agents and hatcheck girls, but nary a reply do i get. i pray for a reply every night: just tell me to go shit in my hat, i pray. then i’ll know that my stuff has at least been delivered.
By William PenrodJuly 1995July 1995There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
Martin Luther King Jr.
And now I know that He wants me to try to write a book again and that this time I’ll succeed.
By William PenrodJuly 1995June 1995This republic was not established by cowards, and cowards will not preserve it.
Elmer Davis
October 1994Why do you go and build a monument to a man who sends electricity through a wire? Does not nature do that millions of times over? Is not everything already existing in nature? What is the value of your getting it? It is already there.
Vivekananda
I’m wary of men and women whose speeches are impassioned but who rarely listen; who know how to save the world but not their own neglected marriages. Rather than face the dark side of their consciousness, they exhort us to march behind them in the lengthening shadows, to live (and die) for their truth (or re-election).
By Sy SafranskyOctober 1994Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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