Becoming Duchess Goldblatt

by Duchess Goldblatt

Have you ever heard of Saint Drogo? One of my favorites. Patron saint of mute people, the mentally ill, and coffee. If that’s not a power triumvirate, then I don’t know what is.”

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Once you let go of hope, you never have to be disappointed again.

I hope someone wants to read this, but probably no one will. It will have to be only for my own entertainment, so I’ll write whatever makes me laugh.

The human mind is kind. It will create blank spaces for itself. I think of them as little airbags in my mind, cushioning the tender places where the blows and bruises are.

Nobody’s ever read my aura, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably light gray and covered with lint.

I left a window open overnight and the moonlight slipped away and now the sun’s getting in and touching all my stuff.

“Doesn’t matter. Special circumstances are only special to you. Makes no difference to the State of New York.”

My old neighborhood had been very formal: large houses, big yards. People would drive into their attached garages and disappear within; you’d never see anyone out walking, coming or going.

Just when you think you can’t expect less, you have to learn again to expect less.

How do you love everybody? Surely you can’t love everybody. Surely some people don’t deserve it. I used to ask my father about this all the time. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘deserve,’” he’d say. “You love people because they’re people, because they’re human beings. Not necessarily because you enjoy their company, which is one kind of love, but because you recognize they’re inherently worthy. Every person is inherently worthy. I’d argue it’s your obligation, regardless of whether you think it’s your job to decide if they’ve earned it.”

“We have to love other people regardless of their actions and without any hope of reward. Even our enemies deserve our grace.”

(That’s the dark side of social media, too; it’s both petri dish and loudspeaker for the very worst people in the world.)

Writers can be a lot of fun at parties, but word to the wise: Keep an eye on your good memories. They’ll strip them down for parts.

I will die as I lived: laughing at my own jokes and, if I had to guess, choking on a swizzle stick.

Normally I’d consider a beloved book an appropriate gift for anybody.

It’s always the case that when you tell a secret to half a couple, you’ve told them both.

“What is the point of all this suffering?” I asked the psychologist once. “Why am I being punished?” “The point? There is no point,” she said. “You can live to be one hundred and you’ll never find a point. And you’re not being singled out for some special cosmic punishment, either. You’re not that special. Everybody suffers.”

What an unimaginable intimacy it would be to be welcome to walk into someone else’s home without knocking.

When someone you love dies, you lose them in pieces over time, but you also get them back in pieces: little fragments of memory come rushing back through what they cared about, what brought them joy. If you’re lucky, you get little pieces back for the rest of your life.

Don’t let anyone shame you for your love of an imaginary friend. Religions have been founded on less.

After a certain point, people lose patience with your grief. They just want you to move on.

What do we gain by measuring my grief against yours? Other people have it worse than you. Chew up your sadness and swallow it. Smile. Bring a dish to pass. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

John Irving has a book of essays on writing and wrestling—I don’t recommend it; it’s VERY John Irving, by which I mean if you don’t love him already, it’s not going to help—but

You’re entitled to have your feelings. Your heart belongs to you. Nobody else gets to decide who lives inside your heart. You choose who you want to love.”

At what moment is a friendship conceived? When does it become a viable form of life?

Choices are a luxury. We forget that sometimes, don’t we? Not everybody gets to have choices.

If you have the education, wits, and leisure time to pursue your own interests, you have it better than 99% of the people who ever lived.

What’s your favorite food to prepare for yourself when you’re alone?—JRL Coffee. I look forward to it hours in advance, and I sing it a little love song when we’re together.

My greatest childhood dream was to be an author whom everyone would read but no one would look at directly, but I couldn’t figure out a way to write books without people knowing my name.

When we rely on self-deprecating humor, we’re trying to neutralize criticism preemptively,

The mean joke is always right there at my fingertips. It’s effortless. Any asshole can make a mean joke. It’s harder work to reach out further for the joke that’s funny and can’t hurt anybody.

When I was the boss at my old job, people would approach me with bullshit problems and I would stare at them hard and say, “How would you solve this problem if I didn’t exist?”—PJ

If I make a joke at another person’s expense, even a gentle joke, even if the person is beyond the reach of my voice and will never know it or be hurt by it: it diminishes my listener to hear it; it diminishes me to tell it. The better joke is always going to be the one that doesn’t hurt anybody.

If you’ve ever wondered what the right thing is to say to someone who’s grieving a death, I think this is it: Tell me all about your dear one.