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God: I Own You Like I Own The Caves. The Ocean: Not A Chance. No Comparison. God: I Made You. I Could Tame You. The Ocean: At One Time, Maybe. But Not Now. God: I Will Come To You, Freeze You, Break You. The Ocean: I Will Spread Myself Like Wings. I Am A Billion Tiny Feathers. You Have No Idea What's Happened To Me.

-Dave Eggers

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God: I Own You

Dave Eggers

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God: I Own You Like I Own The Caves. The Ocean: Not A Chance. No Comparison. God: I Made You. I Could Tame You. The Ocean: At One Time, Maybe. But Not Now. God: I Will Come To You, Freeze You, Break You. The Ocean: I Will Spread Myself Like Wings. I Am A Billion Tiny Feathers. You Have No Idea What's Happened To Me.

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Control Someone

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You Invite Things To Happen. You Open The Door. You Inhale. And If You Inhale The Chaos, You Give The Chaos, The Chaos Gives Back.

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Suffering Is Only Suffering If It’s Done In Silence, In Solitude. Pain Experienced In Public, In View Of Loving Millions, Was No Longer Pain. It Was Communion.

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He Was Feeling Buoyant, Flexible. He Wanted To Go Jogging. He Stood. He Couldn't Go Jogging. He Called Room Service And Ordered A Basket Of Breads And Pastries.

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I Had The Sensation That I Might Always Be Running Like This, That I Would Always Have To Run, And That I Would Always Be Able To Run.

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Recently, I've Discovered Radiohead And Find Them To Be Quite Good. So Clearly, I'm Some Kind Of Musical Retard. (jonathan Ames, Middle-american Gothic)

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We Feel That To Reveal Embarrassing Or Private Things, We Have Given Someone Something, That, Like A Primitive Person Fearing That A Photographer Will Steal His Soul, We Identify Our Secrets, Our Past And Their Blotches, With Our Identity, That Revealing Our Habits Or Losses Or Deeds Somehow Makes One Less Of Oneself.

One Might Think That A Boy Who Was Out In The Snow For So Long Would Get Cold, But Max Was Not. He Was Warm, Partly Because He Had On Many Layers, And Partly Because Boys Who Are Part Wolf And Part Wind Do Not Get Cold.

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I Think There's Great Value To The Associated Press And To Reuters, But If You Wanted To Generate Original Content, Maybe Written By Local Writers, It Just Takes A Little Bit Of Openness To Open Your Pages Up To A Wider Freelance Writer Pool, And Then You Might Find New Voices And A Wider Array Of Voices, And Definitely More Original Content That Can't Be Found Anywhere Else.

We've Become A Nation Of Indoor Cats, He'd Said. A Nation Of Doubters, Worriers, Overthinkers. Thank God These Weren't The Kind Of Americans Who Settled This Country. They Were A Different Breed! They Crossed The Country In Wagons With Wooden Wheels! People Croaked Along The Way, And They Barely Stopped. Back Then, You Buried Your Dead And Kept Moving.

I've Purposely Stayed Away From Reading Much About Postmodern Theory, And Most Everything I Have Read Just Bored Me To Tears. I Don't Think Anybody's Written About It, Or Very Few Have, With Any Verve.

I Am A Bike Enthusiast; There's A Certain Amount Of Romance To Bikes. They're Both Beautiful And Utilitarian.

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My Parents Told Me They Were Going To Kill Me At Least A Thousand Times Growing Up. "i'm Gonna Kill You," And Then They'd Whack Me On The Side Of The Head Or Whatever. And "what's Wrong With You?" And "i'm Gonna Lock You Up," And "i'm Gonna Throw You Out The Window," And "i'm Gonna Kill You." You Know, All These Things That You Say In The Heat Of A Normal Chaotic Household.

I Am A Freak In Secondhand Velour, A Leper Who Uses L'oreal Anti-sticky Mega Gel. I Am Rootless, Ripped From All Foundations, An Orphan Raising An Orphan And Wanting To Take Away Everything There Is And Replace It With Stuff I've Made.

But There Was Something Psychological Happening There That Was Just A Little Bit Different. And The Other Thing Was, There Was No Stigma. Kids Weren't Going Into The 'center-for-kids-that-need-more-help' Or Something Like That. It Was 826 Valencia.

We Have Advantages. We Have A Cushion To Fall Back On. This Is Abundance. A Luxury Of Place And Time. Something Rare And Wonderful. It's Almost Historically Unprecedented. We Must Do Extraordinary Things. We Have To. It Would Be Absurd Not To.

I Had Grown Up As A Fan Of Studs Terkel. In Chicago He Sort Of Looms Large And Is Mentioned Often.

We Lose Weeks Like Buttons, Like Pencils.

Then He Got More Books. He Saved All The Books.

I Always Like The Idea Of Doing Interviews With Somebody But Completely Seriously Not Ever Mentioning What That Person Is Generally Known For.

Having Lost People When They Were Young, You Feel Intimately Acquainted With Mortality, I Guess. Though I Procrastinate Worse Than Anybody.

I Think I'm Far Too Hopeful And Trusting. That's Something I Got From My Mum.

My Head Was A Condemned Church With A Ceiling Of Bats, But I Swung From This Dark Mood To Euphoria When I Thought About Leaving.

You're Breaking Out Of Character, Again.

Yes, A Dark Time Passed Over This Land, But Now There Is Something Like Light.

We Are All Feeding From Each Other, All The Time, Every Day.

When I'm Doing Work Online Or On The Computer, It's One Thing. When I Want To Read, I Want To Go Elsewhere, And I Want To Be Away From The Screen.

Better To Be At The Bottom Of A Ladder You Want To Climb Than In The Middle Of Some Ladder You Don’t, Right?

Hello Frances, I Have Just Been To Health Class, And I Was Wondering How Your Feminine Parts Were Developing.

The Voice Of The Nickly Reflection Of The Moon Was Not As Deep As You Might Expect. It Was A Singer’s Voice, Though, A Tenor, One That Loved Itself Without Reservation. “i Feel Time Like You Dream. Your Dreams Are Jumbled. You Can’t Remember The Order Of Your Dreams, And When You Recall Them, The Memories Bend. Faces Change. It’s All In Puddles And Ripples. That’s What Time Is For Me.

Well, My Background Is Journalism. I Don't Have Any Creative-writing Experience Except For One Class I Took As A Sophomore In College.

I Still Get My News From The Newspaper In The Morning. I Just Have An Affection For Paper, And That's No Secret, I Guess.

God: I Own You Like I Own The Caves. The Ocean: Not A Chance. No Comparison. God: I Made You. I Could Tame You. The Ocean: At One Time, Maybe. But Not Now. God: I Will Come To You, Freeze You, Break You. The Ocean: I Will Spread Myself Like Wings. I Am A Billion Tiny Feathers. You Have No Idea What's Happened To Me.

When We Don't Get The Results We Want In Our Military Endeavors, We Don't Blame The Soldiers.

I Grew Up North Of Chicago, Not Far From Where The Schwinn Bicycle Plant Used To Be, And Was Conscious Of The Fact That These Beautiful, Everlasting Bikes Were Made Just Down The Road.

My Voice And Movements Are Restricted By The Things I Own.

I'm Better Than You Think. I'm Even Better Than I Think I Am.

Better Than You

In Hospitals I Feel Palpable Comfort. I Feel The Competence, The Expertise, So Much Education And Money, All Of The Supplies Sterile, Everything Packaged, Sealed Tight. My Fears Evaporate When The Automatic Doors Shush Open.

Writing Is A Deep-sea Dive. You Need Hours Just To Get Into It: Down, Down, Down. If You're Called Back To The Surface Every Couple Of Minutes By An Email, You Can't Ever Get Back Down. I Have A Great Friend Who Became A Twitterer And He Says He Hasn't Written Anything For A Year.

My Mind, I Know, I Can Prove, Hovers On Hummingbird Wings. It Hovers And It Churns. And When It's Operating At Full Thrust, The Churning Does Not Stop. The Machines Do Not Rest, The Systems Rarely Cool. And While I Can Forget Anything Of Any Importance--this Is Why People Tell Me Secrets--my Mind Has An Uncanny Knack For Organization When It Comes To Pain. Nothing Tormenting Is Ever Lost, Never Even Diminished In Color Or Intensity Or Quality Of Sound.

She Needs A New Journal. The One She Has Is Problematic. To Get To The Present, She Needs To Page Through The Past, And When She Does, She Remembers Things, And Her New Journal Entries Become, For The Most Part, Reactions To The Days She Regrets, Wants To Correct, Rewrite.

Every Part Of My Body Felt Electric. My Chest Ached And My Head Throbbed With The Great Terrible Limitless Possibility Of The Morning, And When It Came, The Sky Was Washed White, Everything Was New, And I Hadn't Slept At All.

All I Ever Wanted Was To Know What To Do.

If You Don't Want Anyone To Know About Your Existence, You Might As Well Kill Yourself. You're Taking Up Space, Air.

I Often Cannot Believe The Things I Do.

It Was Called The Middle Ages, The Dark Ages. If Not For The Monks, Everything The World Had Ever Learned Would Have Been Lost. Well, We Live In A Similar Time, When We're Losing The Vast Majority Of What We Do And See And Learn. But It Doesn't Have To Be That Way.

You Have What I Can Afford To Give. You Are A Panhandler, Begging For Anything, And I Am The Man Walking Briskly By, Tossing A Quarter Or So Into Your Paper Cup. I Can Afford To Give You This. This Does Not Break Me.

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