Lorrie Moore's definition of "mistress" is my favorite definition of mistress
on collecting sentences
When you were six you thought mistress meant to put your shoes on the wrong feet. Now you are older and know it can mean many things, but essentially it means
to put your shoes on the wrong feet. - Lorrie Moore
I like to keep track of sentences I loved reading (I myself was a good-natured cloud, which would float by and steal things, and wait for praise. - Eileen Myles) as well as lines that remind me of who I want to be or how I want to feel (Everybody, one at a time - Richard Bausch)
I like having the wisdom of others at the ready, and I want to get it exact. The number of times I’ve had to text my coach to ask her to remind me of the thing I always text her asking her to remind me of… (Treat everyone like they are creative, resourceful, and whole.)
I think specificity is earth’s most powerful resource. I can tell you how Rivers Cuomo is disarming and vulnerable in the Weezer episode of Song Exploder but it’s way better if I can show you (I have a spreadsheet of song titles, hundreds and hundreds of song titles, and I'm always adding to it. I have another spreadsheet of lines; things I want to say, or things I've read in a book, or heard on a TV show or a movie. A lot of it is taken right out of my journals. Right now, I have them all tagged by how many syllables each line has, if it's accented or unaccented to start, or the last two syllables also, is it strong, weak, or weak, strong, that sort of thing.
It sounds like something happened in my life, and then I observed it, and then I wrote a song about it. And it's coherent, there's a beginning, middle, and end. And that's totally not the case at all. It's all, each line is from a completely different place, and I just reassembled them in some order that suggests a story that never happened. [laughter] It's a crazy way to write. - Rivers Cuomo)
Since I know I’m a moon cratered by everything that has bumped into me, I want proof of the encounters. (I’m not even gon lie to you. I love me so much right now. - Kanye West)
I also want proof of being made up of those encounters. (I am a compost heap, and everything I interact with, every experience I’ve had, gets shoveled onto the heap where it eventually mulches down, is digested and excreted by worms, and rots. It’s from that rich, dark humus, the combination of what you encountered, what you know and what you’ve forgotten, that ideas start to grow. - Ann Patchett) Also: Books are made out of books. - Cormac McCarthy
I like saving lines that remind me of my own agency. (He loved her, of course, but better than that he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing. - Sherman Alexie) As a people pleaser (enneagram 2 🤟) I don’t need reminding to show up for the people I love as much as I need reminding to show up for myself. (Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? -Mary Oliver) How would Mary Oliver feel knowing I regularly use her poetry to empower myself to choose more comfortable pants?
I think she would say: girl u do u. It’s wild how hard it is to give ourselves permission to do what we want or take what we need. (Or is that more of a me problem?) Perhaps earth’s most precious resource is actually confidence. (If you have enough authority, you can do anything you want. - Jenny Offill) Also: If you walk briskly in a pilot's uniform, you can go pretty much anywhere. I've been upstairs at the White House while the Obamas were sleeping. - Matt Damon as Carol Burnett on 30 Rock
If I come across something that gives me authority (my personal pilot’s uniform) I keep it. (The world needs the weirdest part of you. - Miranda July) That includes anything that helps me understand myself better. (It’s hard for twos to be focused inward if there is even one other person in the room. We are always at least somewhat aware of the needs and concerns of others because that’s how we see the world, so Twos need solitude to do their work. -Suzanne Stabile)
Sometimes the words that help me are my own. I found an old doc in my google drive titled, ‘Things I learned in my 20s.’ All it said was: You can have cake. You just can’t have only cake. My coach prompts me to write mantras so I can stay reminded of the intentions I’m setting for myself. Lately I have been able to give myself permission to accept bad feelings by simply saying: of course! Acceptance is not a step you can skip. (What you resist persists - Carl Jung)
A lot of what I keep just feels great to read. I love decisive sentences with evocative references (I inhale four times with the drama of the first amphibian. - Lorrie Moore) and uncommon phrasing (a photo of my mother when she is fourteen and the adult bones are at last there. - Lorrie Moore) I love Lorrie Moore. I also loooooove a good joke. (The Princess and the Pea, but the pea is a tiny piece of mild criticism.” - Mallory Ortberg)
I used to post this stuff on my blog (RIP) but now I need a new system. It’s overwhelming to think about all that I’ve missed recording since I killed it. (2008 - 2019) If art is a way of proving your existence then maybe saving sentences is a way of proving your participation. (Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories. - Zadie Smith)
Thank you for reading! - Britt
Some of the lines I love that didn’t make it in this piece:
How we spend our lives is, of course, how we spend our days. - Annie Dillard
I am a too ripe fruit and I accept it. I’m bursting with many different types of love. - Jenny Slate
The hardest part of my job is simply to shift from one task to the next. The new task is like icy water you have to dive into. The old task is a warm bath. - Ira Glass
I write about my life because I’m a writer. I don’t write about my life because I think anything remarkable has happened to me. - Chloe Caldwell
Would you excuse me? I cut my foot before, and my shoe is filling up with blood. - Romy White (Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion)
Feel free to comment with a favorite sentence!
Hamster this is so good. So first I just wanna say that. I want to do the opposite of what the Progressive commercials (which I love) warn against. I want to and might just print the internet because this post is so great.
This is one of reasons I prefer reading hard books vs digital. I like highlighting. Looking back. Possessing. Also looking back at something I have underlined when I am in such a different life space.
For example I reread The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson and it hits differently now that partnered and a momma.
I will try to find some lines later as I so appreciate this offering.