Douglas Kennedy
Douglas Kennedy
parent forgiving adults
The only time you truly become an adult is when you finally forgive your parents for being just as flawed as everyone else.
space blue bird
Because there is no meaning to be found in the arbitrary nature of things., It's all random. Just as space is blue. And birds fly through it.
solitude said
There is much to be said for solitude.
light profound darkness
We can never change the story that made us what we are. It's a story accumulated by the manifold complexities-its capacity for astonishment and horror, for sanguinity and hopelessness, for pellucid light and the most profound darkness. We are what happened to us. And we carry everywhere all that has shaped us-all that we lacked, all that we wanted but never got; all that we got but never wanted; all that was found and lost.
pursuit-of-happiness past ideas
If there is an abiding theme in 'The Pursuit of Happiness,' it is the idea that you come into the world already shaped by other people's past histories.
keys admitting facts
We don't like admitting this, but it is a key component of human existence: the fact that life has the potential for things both wondrous and horrific.
new-york writing two
I've been known to write on the Underground in London and on the subway in New York. I have two or three cafes in Paris that I go into. I find a corner with a little shade, and I can work.
tragedy pay alive
Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us.
serious novelists want
I want to be a popular novelist who's also serious, or a serious novelist who's also very accessible.
doubt individual
From Graham Greene, I learnt how to be an accessible writer who grapples with our doubts as sentient individuals.
matter words-matter imports
Words matter, words have import.
unique stories
All our stories are simultaneously unique and desperately similar, aren't they?
agony would-be moments
There were moments when I felt seriously unhinged; when I was convinced that I would never, ever recover from what had happened, when it was absolutely clear to me that life from this point on would be constant agony ...
thinking wounds
We can rarely tell others what we really think about them--not just because it would so wound them, but also because it would so wound ourselves.