Steve Almond
Steve Almond
Steve Almond is an American short-story writer, essayist and author of ten books, three of which are self-published...
journey emotional self
It is certainly true that cooking is therapeutic, creative and all those other faintly creepy self-helpish words. I would love to tell you that learning to cook was part of my journey toward actualization. I would love to tell Oprah this. I would love to tell Oprah this while weeping. But I learned to cook for a much simpler reason: in the abject hope that people would spend time with me if I put good things in their mouth. It is, in other words (like practically everything else I do), a function of my desperation for emotional connection and acclaim.
language aspiration
All language is an aspiration to music.
giving-up stress taken
The single biggest reason I got my stories taken in various literary magazines - and I want to stress this - is because I refused to give up. Period.
beautiful halloween night
Nothing on Earth is so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night.
wise true-friend life-is-short
We are all, in the private kingdom of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend. Someone who isn’t embarrassed by our emotions, or her own, who recognizes that life is short and all that we have to offer, in the end, is love.
teacher parent who-we-are
A good teacher, after all, wields the authority of a parent with none of the psychological baggage. The best of them are semi-mysterious figures whose wisdom seems boundless and whose approval helps us discover who we are.
distance dirty fog
But something occurred to me as I sped through that dirty shroud of fog, something Vonnegut has been trying to explain to the rest of us for most of his life. And that is this: Despair is a form of hope. It is an acknowledgment of the distance between ourselves and our appointed happiness. At certain moments, it is reason enough to live.
running country thinking
Every now and then, I'll run into someone who claims not to like chocolate, and while we live in a country where everyone has the right to eat what they want, I want to say for the record that I don't trust these people, that I think something is wrong with them, and that they're probably - and this must be said - total duds in bed.
eye night done
At the end of night, before you close your eyes, be content with what you've done and be proud of who you are.
expectations hardship world
Something is funny, most of all, because it's true, and because the velocity of insight into this truth exceeds our normal standards. Something is funny because it's outside our accepted boundary of decorum. Something is funny because it defies our expectations. Something is funny because it offers a temporary reprieve from the hardship of seeing the world as it actually is. Something is funny because it is able to suggest gently that even the worst of our circumstances and sins is subject to eventual mercy.
wise true-friend book
We need books...because we are all, in the private kingdoms of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend.
children hard-times cracks
I have a hard time defending the production of candy, given that it is basically crack for children and makes them dependent in unwholesome ways.
art real struggle
But the real life of a writer resides in showing up at the keyboard every day, with the necessary patience and mercy, and making the best decisions you can on behalf of your people. It's a slow process. It often feels hopeless, more like an affliction than an art form. Most of us will have to find our readers one by one, in other words, and against considerable resistance. If anything qualifies us as heroic, it's that private perpetual struggle. Put down that magazine, soldier. Forget about the other guy. Remember who you are.
heart men soul
I love men, the restlessness of their corrupted souls, the way they hide their heavy, murderous hearts, their sudden delicacies and small shocking acts of tenderness.