The one thing they didn't tell you at Iowa is how hard it is to make a living writing fiction and poetry. Peter Heller More Quotes by Peter Heller More Quotes From Peter Heller Is it possible to love so desperately that life is unbearable? I don't mean unrequited, I mean being in the love. In the midst of it and desperate. Because knowing it will end, because everything does. End. Peter Heller unbearableknowingmean Grief is an element. It has its own cycle like the carbon cycle, the nitrogen. It never diminishes not ever. It passes in and out of everything. Peter Heller nitrogencarbon-cyclegrief You rest now. Rest for longer than you are used to resting. Make a stillness around you, a field of peace. Your best work, the best time of your life will grow out of this peace. Peter Heller usedfieldslife Funny how you can live a whole life waiting and not know it. Peter Heller whole-lifewholewaiting Most of us are never seen, not clearly, and when we are we likely jump and run. Peter Heller running Maybe freedom really is nothing left to lose. You had it once in childhood, when it was okay to climb a tree, to paint a crazy picture and wipe out on your bike, to get hurt. The spirit of risk gradually takes its leave. It follows the wild cries of joy and pain down the wind, through the hedgerow, growing ever fainter. What was that sound? A dog barking far off? That was our life calling to us, the one that was vigorous and undefended and curious. Peter Heller painhurtdog It is okay for people you love to leave. For them to come and go. She taught it to me over and over. Peter Heller taughtlovepeople I want to be two people at once. One runs away. Peter Heller runningtwopeople I think now that maybe true sweetness can only happen in limbo. Peter Heller sweetnessbeing-truethinking That is what we are, what we do: nose a net, push push, a net that never exists. The knots in the mesh as strong as our own believing. Our own fears. Peter Heller strongfearbelieve If there is nothing else there is this: to be inundated, consumed. Peter Heller consumedifs She's a surprise this old earth, one big surprise after another since before she separated from the moon who circles and circles like the mate of a shot goose. Peter Heller circlesmoonearth I think now that maybe true sweetness can only happen in limbo. I don't know why. Is it because we are so unsure, so tentative and waiting? Like it needs that much room, that much space to expand. The not knowing anything really, the hoping, the aching transience: This is not real, not really, and so we let it alone, let it unfold lightly. Those times that can fly. Peter Heller knowingrealthinking Meager as it is. Nothing to lose as I have. Nothing is something somehow. Peter Heller nothing-to-loseloses How you refill. Lying there. Something like happiness, just like water, pure and clear pouring in. So good you don’t even welcome it, it runs through you in a bright stream, as if it has been there all along. Peter Heller runningwaterlying To multiply the years and divide by the desire to live is a kind of false accounting. Peter Heller kinddesireyears Maybe the most real thing the end. To realize when it's too late. Peter Heller realendstoo-late Dont pretend to be that small, you are not that great! Peter Heller Life and death lived inside each other. That's what occured to me. Death was inside all of us, waiting for warmer nights, a compromised system, a beetle, as in the now dying black timber on the mountains. Peter Heller life-and-deathwaitingnight There is no one to tell this to and yet it seems very important to get this right. The reality and what it is like to escape it. That even now it is sometimes too beautiful to bear. Peter Heller beautifullifereality
