Quotes: Michelle Richmond

    "Whenever she was having trouble making sense of a problem, Lila used to turn the piece of paper she was working on upside down. "It helps to see it from a new perspective," she would say. "This way, I have to concentrate on each number, each symbol. It's like having a second set of eyes with which to view the same picture. Sometimes a completely different angle is all I need to break through." 

–– Michelle Richmond, American writer 

Source: Michelle Richmond. No One You Know. New York: Bantam Dell, 2008; p. 89. 

via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2023, p. 136.

Quotes: Steven Heighton

"Novelty is nothing more than a fresh combining."

–– Steven Heighton (1961-2022), Canadian novelist, poet, short-story writer

Source: Steven Heighton. Work Book. Toronto, Ontario: ECW Press, 2011, p. 25.

via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2023, p.115. 

Quotes: Kyo Maclear

"To what do we commit ourselves and for how long? Monet painted the Nymphéas two hundred and forty-seven times. "It took me some time to understand my waterlilies," he wrote. The older I get the more I understand this impulse toward reduction and repetition; the more I understand there is infinitude in a spartan focus, in Agnes Martin's geometries, in Giorgio Morandi's vases. Focalizing can be regenerative even for those of us who believe the sprawling clamour of the world demands our promiscuous attention.

–– Kyo Maclear (b. 1970), British-born, Canadian writer and artist 

Source: Kyo Maclear. Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2023; pp. 193. 

via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2023, p.108.