Alphabetical Diaries

by Sheila Heti

A book can be about more than one thing, like a kaleidoscope, it can have many things that coalesce into one thing, different strands of a story, the attempt to do several, many, more than one thing at a time, since a book is kept together by its binding.

A book that is a game.

A feeling that I could occupy myself with this feeling forever. A feminist feeling.

Art is not essential, but love is essential, and maybe that is why people make art, to express their love of something—that tree, humans, the world, language, intensity of thought—and the person who doesn’t respond to a work of art is perhaps missing the love of the thing which the artist is pointing to, lovingly.

Curiosity is not a good reason to get married.

Don’t forget that although you aren’t telling a story, you must still do what stories do, which is lead the reader through an experience.