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Was She Terrifyingly Beautiful? Was She So Ignorant She Didn't Deserve The Truth? Was She Also A Liar And Thus It Was Something They Did Together? I Don't Believe In Psychology; Which Says Everything You Do Is Because Of Yourself. That Is So Untrue. We Are Social Animals, And Everything We Do Is Because Of Other People, Because We Love Them, Or Because We Don't.

-Miranda July

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Was She Terrifyingly Beautiful?

Miranda July

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Was She Terrifyingly Beautiful? Was She So Ignorant She Didn't Deserve The Truth? Was She Also A Liar And Thus It Was Something They Did Together? I Don't Believe In Psychology; Which Says Everything You Do Is Because Of Yourself. That Is So Untrue. We Are Social Animals, And Everything We Do Is Because Of Other People, Because We Love Them, Or Because We Don't.

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In An Ideal World, We Would Have Been Orphans. We Felt Like Orphans And We Felt Deserving Of The Pity That Orphans Get, But Embarrassingly Enough, We Had Parents.

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Do You Have Doubts About Life? Are You Unsure If It's Worth The Trouble? Look At The Sky: That Is For You. Look At Each Person's Face As You Pass On The Street: Those Faces Are For You. And The Street Itself, And The Ground Under The Street And The Ball Of Fire Underneath The Ground: All These Things Are For You. They Are As Much For You As They Are For Other People. Remember This When You Wake Up In The Morning And Think You Have Nothing. Stand Up And Face The East. Now Praise The Sky And Praise The Light Within Each Person Under The Sky. It's Okay To Be Unsure. But Praise, Praise, Praise.

I Suppose The Daily Disciplines Are Just A Reflection Of The Qualities Of My Inner World - A Mixture Of Paralysis And Terror And A Lighter, Freer, Kind Of Rebellious Woman. So Those Are Just Constantly Pushing Against Each Other, And That's Played Out In Every Area Of My Life.

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I Asked Myself If I Would Kill My Parents To Save His Life, A Question I Had Been Posing Since I Was Fifteen. The Answer Always Used To Be Yes. But In Time, All Those Boys Had Faded Away, And My Parents Were Still There. I Was Now Less And Less Willing To Kill Them For Anyone; In Fact, I Worried For Their Health. In This Case, However, I Had To Say Yes. Yes, I Would.

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In The Weeks That Followed, We Amazed Ourselves. Our Habits Slid Apart Easily...and Our Very Few Intimacies Were Simply Discontinued. Where Did They Go, Those Things We Did? Were They Recycled? Did Some New Couple In China Do Them? Were A Swedish Man And Woman Foot To Foot At This Very Moment?

For A Split Second I Felt As Though She Was Nobody Special In The Larger Scheme Of My Life. She Was Just Some Girl Who Had Tied Me To Her Leg To Help Her Sink When She Jumped Off The Bridge. Then I Blinked And Was In Love With Her Again.

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He's Stuck At 3:14 A.m. With Only The Moon To Talk To.

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Would She Understand That Time Had Stopped While She Was Gone.

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I Steeled Myself Against Laughter; I Would Rather Die Than Laugh. I Didn’t Laugh, I Did Not Laugh. But I Died, I Did Die.

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There's All Different Kinds Of People, But I Don't Think It's That Unusual That Once You Get Like A Little Power, You Get To Do Your Weird Thing Even More.

I Realize That We All Think We Might Be Terrible People. But We Only Reveal This Before We Ask Someone To Love Us. It Is A Kind Of Undressing.

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I'm Always Just Trying To Get The Work Done So That I Can Be Free - Like, With The Sense That, Like, The Real Me Has No Interest In This? I Just Gotta Do It For My Boss. But The Catch Is That I'm Never Free, I Never Finish The Work, So I Don't Know Who This Freewheeling Employee With Extracurricular Interests Is.

We Were Always Getting Away With Something, Which Implied That Someone Was Always Watching Us, Which Meant That We Were Not Alone In This World.

When She Saw My Messy Desk, She Said She Was The Same Way, And There Was No Dust On The Tv, And I Was Easy To Love. People Just Need A Little Help Because They Are So Used To Not Loving. It's Like Scoring The Clay To Make Another Piece Of Clay Stick To It.

That Day I Carried The Dream Around Like A Full Glass Of Water, Moving Gracefully So I Would Not Lose Any Of It.

You've Got The People You Know, Which Are Problematic. Always. They're Rich But They're Also Real People Living Their Lives Alongside You. Then You've Got The People That You Make-up Completely, Who Are Often Missing A Dimension If They Don't Have Some Reference To Real People. So Strangers Exist In This In-between Space, Where In Not Knowing Them, You Are Creating A Fiction For Them, Even In Passing, But At The Same Time, There They Are, With Their Actual Bodies And Their Actual Clothes. It's Totally Enticing.

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I Gave You Things I Wasn't Sure I Even Had.

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He Seemed To Be Waiting For Me To Move Forward. Weren't We All.

When You're Trying To Create Something And You Need To Hang Out, In Not Knowing, In All The Cracks And Spaces Where You Feel Lost, And You Need To Endure Them, And Have New Ideas Come Out Of That Emptiness, Well, The Internet Is What We Do When We Feel Lost, You Know? Like, You Go Online Or You Check Your Email When You Don't Know What To Do Next, And So It's Not Helpful, In That Sense.

Somewhat Predictably, I'm Much More Comfortable In Front Of An Audience - And A Big Audience Is Even Better - Than Faced With One Stranger. This Always Seems Like A Bit Of A Failing On My Part, As A Human. I Think That's Also Why I Put Myself Situations Where I'm Forced To Engage In Other Ways.

The Idea That You Might End Up In A Job That Doesn't Allow You To Be Who You Are, Over The Course Of A Lifetime, Is Still One Of The Most Chilling Nightmares To Me. It's A Good Metaphor For Fears I Have About Losing My Soul In Some Accidental, Mundane Way. So, To Me, These Jobs That My Characters Have Are Very Loaded. They Immediately Suggest A Complex Character To Me, A Woman Who Is, Say, A Secretary, But Also A Vigilante On Behalf Of Her Own Soul.

Inelegantly, And Without My Consent, Time Passed.

... We Had Once Called Out Hello Into The Cauldron Of The World And Then Run Away Before Anyone Could Respond.

Live The Dream, Potato.

Living The Dream

I've Always Been Terrified Of Getting Used To Something That Is Actually Killing Me-a Relationship Or A Job. But In Those Cases, You Can Count On A Friend To Say Something. The Internet Is Different, Because All My Friends Are In The Same Relationship.

My Ideal Life Is Just Lounging Around The House And Every Once In A While I'll Kind Of Write Something, And Then I'll Leave And Eat Something And Masturbate Or Whatever - Just This Very Fluid Life Of Comforting Myself.

People Who Would Not Be Using The Word Gender Or Thinking About Gayness Or Trans-ness May Actually, Without Even Thinking About It, Be Not Their Own Gender In Their Inner World. I Think That's Actually So Normal, Because Female Sexuality Is Sold To All Of Us. It Doesn't Just Reach The Eyes Of Men. You Might Not Care About The Idea Of Boobs Or Jugs Or Whatever, But It Could Impact Your Inner Sexual Life.

I Can't Imagine Being Invested In Someone Else's Script.

Some People Are Uncomfortable With Silences. Not Me. I’ve Never Cared Much For Call And Response. Sometimes I Will Think Of Something To Say And Then I Ask Myself: Is It Worth It? And It Just Isn’t.

I Didn't Have Any Vices Before The Internet. There Are A Lot Of Cracks In The Day, Moments Where You Don't Know What To Do Next, So You Have A Little Hole Where You Look At Your Phone. You Want Something That Will Mean You're Not Alone In That Moment.

As A Woman Filmmaker It's Pretty Important That You Have Some Basis Of Confidence That You're Coming From, Because, As I Got Closer To La, There's Less And Less Women. There's Less And Less Mirrors For Who You Are.

Some People Need A Red Carpet Rolled Out In Front Of Them In Order To Walk Forward Into Friendship. They Can't See The Tiny Outstretched Hands All Around Them, Everywhere, Like Leaves On Trees.

I Wish There Were A Class Where We Could Just Keep Going Around The Circle. Around And Around, Until We Had Finally Said Everything About Ourselves.

I Don't Think I'm More Of A Screenwriter Than I Am A Fiction Writer. I'm More Of A Reader Than A Film-watcher, So I Imagine That I'm Not Approaching Fiction Or Films In A Particularly Cinematic Way.

I Was Going To Die And It Was Taking Forever.

It Was A Real Whale, A Photograph Of A Real Whale. I Looked Into Its Tiny Wise Eye And Wondered Where That Eye Was Now. Was It Alive And Swimming, Or Had It Died Long Ago, Or Was It Dying Now, Right This Second? When A Whale Dies, It Falls Down Through The Ocean Slowly, Over The Course Of A Day. All The Other Fish See It Fall, Like A Giant Statue, Like A Building, But Slowly, Slowly.

I Walked Down The Hall And Saw That [she] Was Sitting On The Floor Next To A Chair. This Is Always A Bad Sign. It's A Slippery Slope, And It's Best Just To Sit In Chairs, To Eat When Hungry, To Sleep And Rise And Work. But We Have All Been There. Chairs Are For People, And You're Not Sure If You Are One.

I Moved His Hair Out Of His Face. I Put My Hand Under His Nose And Felt Gentle, Even Breaths. I Pressed My Lips Against His Ear And Whispered Again, It’s Not Your Fault. Perhaps This Was Really The Only Thing I Had Ever Wanted To Say To Anyone, And Be Told.

Nothing Really Mattered, And Nothing Could Be Lost.

All I Ever Really Want To Know Is How Other People Are Making It Through Life—where Do They Put Their Body, Hour By Hour, And How Do They Cope Inside Of It.

They Wordlessly Excused Each Other For Not Loving Each Other As Much As They Had Planned To. There Were Empty Rooms In The House Where They Had Meant To Put Their Love, And They Worked Together To Fill These Rooms With Midcentury Modern Furniture. ("birthmark").

I Really Did Not Feel Okay About Any Of This, And There Was Really Nothing I Could Do About Any Of It.

I'm Always The Kind Of Friend Or Girlfriend Who Suggests, When There's Some Cataclysmic Problem In The Relationship, I'm Like, "well, Maybe We Can Come Up With A Creative Activity That Will Help Us Out." I'm Like, "let's Get Out The Pens! Draw A Picture Of How Much You Hate Me!"

Making A Movie: It's So Hard. It's The Hardest Of All The Things I Do.

You Always Feel Like You Are The Only One In The World, Like Everyone Else Is Crazy For Each Other, But It's Not True. Generally, People Don't Like Each Other Very Much. And That Goes For Friends, Too.

I Was A Lot Dumber When I Was Writing The Novel. I Felt Like Worse Of A Writer Because I Wrote Many Of The Short Stories In One Sitting Or Over Maybe Three Days, And They Didn't Change That Much. There Weren't Many, Many Drafts. That Made Me Feel Semi-brilliant And Part Of A Magical Process. Writing The Novel Wasn't Like That. I Would Come Home Every Day From My Office And Say, "well, I Still Really Like The Story, I Just Wish It Was Better Written." At That Point, I Didn't Realize I Was Writing A First Draft. And The First Draft Was The Hardest Part.

It Occurred To Me That Everyone’s Story Matters To Themselves, So The More I Listened, The More She Wanted To Talk.

She Bludgeoned Me With A Look Of Such Limitless Compassion That I Immediately Began To Cry.

I Am Very Sincere. Some People Are Always Kidding, So When You're Not, It's Going To Seem Annoying To Them.

When I Write, I Wear Earplugs. I Don't Want To Be Self-conscious. I Don't Want To Be Thinking About The Fact That I'm Thinking About It. I Just Want To Be In It. It's One Element Of Hypnosis.

And Why Had Deb's Last Boyfriend Dumped Her? I Dumped Him. Maybe You Didn't French-kiss Him Enough. I Promise You That Wasn't It. Tell Me How Many Times A Day You Kissed, And I'll Say If It Was Enough. Four Hundred. Not Enough.

Sometimes I Would Make Left Turns All The Way Around A Block, And When I Returned To The Original Intersection, I Would Feel Disappointed To Find All The Drivers Were New. It Wasn't Like A Square Dance, Where You Miraculously End Up With Your Original Partner, Laughing And Feeling Giddily Relieved To Find Him After Dancing With Everyone Else In The World. Instead, They Swung Around And Kept On Going, Some People Were At Work By Now, Or Halfway To The Airport. In Fact, Driving Might Be The Thing Most Opposite Of Dancing.

I Wondered If I Would Spend The Rest Of My Life Inventing Complicated Ways To Depress Myself.

It Would Require Constant Vigilance To Not Replace Each Person With My Own Fictional Version Of Them.

The Job Of The Artist Is To Point At Things.

Look At The Sky: That Is For You. Look At Each Person's Face As You Pass Them On The Street: Those Faces Are For You. And The Street Itself, And The Ground Under The Street, And The Ball Of Fire Underneath The Ground: All These Things Are For You.

An Erratum Is A Correction Inserted Into A Book After Publication. It's A Nice Thing To Collect Because You Can't Go After Them, You Just Come Upon Them. In 25 Years I've Only Found About 12.

People Ask, 'why Would You Cast Yourself In Your Movie?' And, For Me, It's More Like An Achievement That I Am Now Not Playing All The Parts, You Know? Like I Was For So Long, In All My Performances And A Lot Of My Short Movies. So, That's Where I'm Coming From, Not Out Of A Kind Of Actress-y Sense Of Myself. I Mean, I Don't Really See Myself As An Actress, But More From Performance: This Is How You Make Something. You Do It Yourself. You're In It And You Write It. I Think I Keep Doing It That Way, 'cause It's My Way. It's What Makes Me Feel Like I Know How To Do It.

We Really Wanted To Know All The Unknowable Things About Each Other And How We Were The Same And How We Were Different, If We Even Were, Maybe Nobody Is.

Thus Far, Everything I've Made Has Come Out Of My Really Feeling It, Out Of The Fire Of My Life.

If You Are Sad, Ask Yourself Why You Are Sad. Then Pick Up The Phone And Call Someone And Tell Him The Answer To The Question. If You Don't Know Anyone, Call The Operator And Tell Him. Most People Don't Know That The Operator Has To Listen, It Is A Law. Also, The Postman Is Not Allowed To Go Inside Your House, But You Can Talk To Him On Public Property For Up To Four Minutes Or Until He Wants To Go, Whichever Comes First.

I Like Embracing Kind Of Normal Forms But Am Always Trying To Approach Them As If No One's Ever Done That Before. As If I'm Literally The First Person To Ever Write A Book.

Now Began The Part Of Her Life Where She Was Just Very Beautiful, Except For Nothing. Only Winners Will Know What This Feels Like. Have You Ever Wanted Something Very Badly And Then Gotten It? Then You Know That Winning Is Many Things, But It Is Never The Thing You Thought It Would Be.

I Knew The Beginning And The End – I Just Had To Dream Up A Convincing Middle.

I Guess Like Any Writer Or Screenwriter I'm Alone In My Own World So Much Of The Time That I'm Often Trying To Force Myself Out Of My World. Into More Risk. A Less Controlled Kind Of Inspiration. I'm So Keenly Aware Of How Easy It's Getting To Not Leave The House, With Amazon, Especially.

Most Great Filmmakers Are Good At Place. Like How People Say, Like, "the City Itself Is A Character In The Movie," You Know? I'm So Interior. I Always Forget There's Such A Thing As An Exterior Wide Shot, Where You Can See Where Someone Is. As Opposed To Just: How Can We Show What This Person Is Thinking, In An Abstract Way That Is Felt?

Life Is Just This Way, Broken, And I Am Crazy To Hope For Something Else.

Well,i Have A Theory That Men Don't Actually Cry Less Than Women,they Just Do It Differently. Since We Never Saw Our Fathers Cry,we Are Forced To Invent Our Own Unique Method.

People Tend To Stick To Their Own Size Group Because It's Easier On The Neck. Unless They Are Romantically Involved, In Which Case The Size Difference Is Sexy. It Means: I Am Willing To Go The Distance For You.

I Actually Don't Have A Great Surplus Of Ideas. Some Evolve Very Slowly, Over Many Years, But I Sort Of Trust That All Of The Interesting Ones Will Become Something That I Eventually End Up Doing.

When I Was Fifteen, A Dark Shape Came Into My Room At Night. It Was Dark, But It Glowed, Which Is The First Of Many Facts You Will Have To Tackle With Your Imagination. It Wasn't In The Shape Of A Person, But Right Away I Knew It Was Like A Person In Every Way Except For How It Looked. As It Turns Out, Our Looks Are Not The Main Thing That Makes Us Human.

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