This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

by Ann Patchett

turns out that the distance from head to hand, from wafting butterfly to entomological specimen, is achieved through regular practice.

Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art you must master the craft.

Most of us are full up with bad stories, boring stories, self-indulgent stories, searing works of unendurable melodrama. We must get all of them out of our system in order to find the good stories that may or may not exist in the freshwater underneath.

Forgiveness. The ability to forgive oneself. Stop here for a few breaths and think about this because it is the key to making art, and very possibly the key to finding any semblance of happiness in life.

Every time I have set out to translate the book (or story, or hopelessly long essay) that exists in such brilliant detail on the big screen of my limbic system onto a piece of paper (which, let’s face it, was once a towering tree crowned with leaves and a home to birds), I grieve for my own lack of talent and intelligence.

I believe, more than anything, that this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers.

If I wanted a better life for myself I was going to have to write it.

One more thing to think about when putting a novel together: make it hard. Set your sights on something that you aren’t quite capable of doing, whether artistically, emotionally, or intellectually.

Just as every story we tell bears our own distinctive slant on the experience, every story we read bears someone else’s. Whether it’s a story in a newspaper or a chapter in a history textbook, the writer has made the decision of what to include and what to leave out. It doesn’t mean he or she isn’t telling the truth; it simply means that events can’t be recorded exactly. They can only be interpreted. Even a photograph reveals only part of the picture. The frame is defined by its own four edges. Whom do you choose to leave out of the portrait? Whom do you choose to include?

The quality of a life is defined not by its length, but by its depth, its actions and achievements. It is defined by our ability to love.

“It’s not more complicated than that,” she said. “That’s all there is: Does he make you better and do you make him better?”

We are, on this earth, so incredibly small, in the history of time, in the crowd of the world, we are practically invisible, not even a dot, and yet we have each other to hold on to.