It was like other aspects of creation, and had its own passions and wars.

“Well, why did you say I don’t know about love?” the sun asked the boy.

“Because it’s not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And it’s not love to see everything from a distance, like you do. Love is the force that transforms the soul and improves the Soul of the World. When I first reached through it, I thought the Soul of the World was perfect. But later, I could see that it was like other aspects of creation, and had its own passions and wars. It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will either be better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”

by Paulo Coelho (born August 24, 1947)
from The Alchemist (1988)

QuoteSnack offers a daily quote, attributed and linked to a confirmed, published source. In addition, each afternoon of every odd-numbered day I’ll post a writing prompt and some simple instructions. The next morning I’ll post a quote that has something to do with the prompt, so you can take a peek at differences or similarities in how someone else relates to using the same words.

There is no wrong approach. Don’t worry if something seems to be a lot more emotionally charged than it is on the surface, or if some prompts are duds for you. This is a mind-opening exercise; anything is possible.

The Prompt

Directions:

1. Be ready to write, word processor open, or pad and pencil in hand. Set a timer for five minutes.
2. Clear your mind.
3. Click “Reveal Writing Prompt” below, and look at the prompt for the space of one deep, quiet breath.
4. As you start the second breath, clear your mind of expectations.
5. Write, full on, whatever comes to you, for five minutes. Do not stop to correct anything - just go.
6. When the time is up, you have to stop.
7. Get up and wiggle. Move. Laugh. Growl. Pat self on back.

You’re welcome to leave comments about the experience and anything that comes of it, including links, but please don’t paste in your entire prompt-generated exercise. What you’ve got right now is a personal thing. What happens next is up to you.

Reveal Writing Prompt »

Missing home: I compare the stately mango trees with the horse-chestnuts of England

C. Darwin to Miss S. Darwin.

Bahia, Brazil, August 4, 1836

It has been almost painful to find how much good enthusiasm has been evaporated during the last four years. I can now walk soberly through a Brazilian forest; not but what it is exquisitely beautiful, but now, instead of seeking for splendid contrasts, I compare the stately mango trees with the horse-chestnuts of England. Although this zigzag has lost us at least a fortnight, in some respects I am glad of it. I think I shall be able to carry away one vivid picture of inter-tropical scenery. We go from hence to the Cape de Verds; that is, if the winds or the Equatorial calms will allow us. I have some faint hopes that a steady foul wind might induce the Captain to proceed direct to the Azores. For which most untoward event I heartily pray.

Both your letters were full of good news; especially the expressions which you tell me Professor Sedgwick used about my collections. I confess they are deeply gratifying - I trust one part at least will turn out true, and that I shall act as I now think - as a man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. Professor Sedgwick mentioning my name at all gives me hopes that he will assist me with his advice, of which, in my geological questions, I stand much in need. It is useless to tell you from the shameful state of this scribble that I am writing against time, having been out all morning, and now there are some strangers on board to whom I must go down and talk civility. Moreover, as this letter goes by a foreign ship, it is doubtful whether it will ever arrive. Farewell, my very dear Susan and all of you.

by Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882)
Letter to his sister Susan
from Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume 1

Darwin: at sea on The Beagle, with his research

When Darwin wrote this letter in 1836, excited about his research but at the same time homesick and bored with being at sea, he was 23 long, busy years from publishing the famous Origin of the Species. Here, he’s finally on his way home, after sailing on The Beagle for five years. At this point, he’s not even sure this letter will reach his sister Susan, but he still writes it up and sends it off.

In the same situation, what would you do? It’s all fine and good to admire Darwin’s achievements in hindsight, but consider how you yourself would hold up in a similar situation. How would you keep yourself interested in your goals? Would you get distracted, sidetracked? Would you both write home and work towards the big picture?

That shadow would marry this shadow

Beside me, Jody’s cheeks bloomed like gold apples, and here and there in the little congregation I recognized other faces of other girls from college and my home town who had known Joan. DeeDee and Nurse Kennedy bent their kerchiefed heads in a front pew.

Then, behind the coffin and the flowers and the face of the minister and the faces of the mourners, I saw the rolling lawns of our town cemetery, knee-deep in snow now, with the tombstones rising out of it like smokeless chimneys.

There would be a black, six-foot-deep gap hacked in the hard ground. That shadow would marry this shadow, and the peculiar, yellowish soil of our locality seal the wound in the whiteness, and yet another snowfall erase the traces of newness in Joan’s grave.

I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.

I am, I am, I am.

by Sylvia Plath (12 October 1932 – 11 February 1963)
from The Bell Jar: A Novel (1963)

Change and Continuity: I am, I am, I am, I am…

When I was in my 20’s I took up commercial baking. The hours were a shock to my system. I was used to getting up about 7:00 am at the earliest. Suddenly, I was in bed by 8pm when my friends were still downstairs visiting, and up and out the door to the first run of the bus by about 4:00, in the dark, when everyone I knew was still sleeping - and that was the late shift.

The city was almost dead quiet at that hour, and I was used to being around people. It was damp and cold and lonely, until I got to the shop where the kitchen would have been hot and bustling since midnight. For the first few months I felt like I was walking into a room full of aliens who wore baker’s whites.

Getting out the door that early was surreal, until the day I noticed a long, faded line of once-bold graffiti, spray painted on a plywood wall between the sidewalk and a construction zone: “I leaned back and listened to the brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am, I am,” with “I am” repeated down to the end of the block.

At first, I thought I’d dreamed it. Then, I looked for it and re-read it, day after day, repeating it like a mantra until long after the wall came down.

How simple! “I am,” like a heartbeat, forever, just because I am here and breathing.

“I am.”

What a gift.

I took it and made it my own.

Who’d have thought that a book, crowned with suicide and misquoted in graffiti, would one day help to power someone like me, on their way to becoming a dessert chef?