Quotes from Julie Schumacher

Believing in books is a lot like believing in God.

Boredom is why God invented books.

My mother says that some books are good no matter when you read them, and some are good at a particular moment; they come into your life at just the right time.

I love to sleep. My astrological sign is the sloth.

Young would-be novelists and poets believe that art is eternal. Au contraire: we are in the business of ephemera, the era of floating islands of trash, and most of the things we feel deeply and inscribe on the page will disappear.

Depression is an illness, and no fault of the person who suffers from it

It was a day like a thousand others, she said. It had begun with caffeine and ended in a desire to slam her head into the drawer of her desk.

Where to start, Fitger thought. The department was a funhouse of dysfunctional characters. Academia was, traditionally, a refuge for the poorly socialized and the obsessive; but English, at Payne, had a higher percentage of crackpots than most.

February 2, 2010—Groundhog Day Addistar Network, Inc. Bridget Maslow, HR [email protected] Dear Ms. Maslow: Though I prefer to send letters of recommendation via the U.S. Postal Service, now considered by many to be as quaint as muttonchop whiskers and the butter churn, I hereby accede to your request for an e-mail evaluation of Quentin Eshe, who has applied for the position of assistant communications coordinator at Addistar.

you've clearly been charged with hiring a jack-of-all-trades. And Dr. Auden is that mythical creature you seek: fully qualified to teach British and American literature, women's studies, composition, creative writing, intermediate parasailing, advanced sword swallowing, and subcategories and permutations of the above.

the literature student has learned to inquire, to question, to interpret, to critique, to compare, to research, to argue, to sift, to analyze, to shape, to express. His intellect can be put to broad use. The computer major, by contrast, is a technician - a plumber clutching a single, albeit shining, box of tools.

I would outlaw literature exams entirely; I would also eschew the twin barbarities of 'attendance' and 'participation' as grading criteria, necessitated by workload increase.

Suffice it to say that the LOR has usurped the place of my own work, now adorned with cobwebs and dust in a remote corner of my office.

reality was bleak and often unbearable, their puny lives a meaningless trudge toward the blank vault of death.

What kind of appointments?" Fran squinted at the screen. "Let's see. The red ones are usually mandatory or urgent: info session for new chairs and directors; convocation; faculty cabinet; humanities council; faculty appeals board; university caucus…" Fitger had the sensation that he was listening to his obituary read aloud, including a detailed account of the things that would kill him.

We can't stick together if we're going to different places," CeeCee said.

Do you want to stand here talking about the car, or are you going to get in it?" CeeCee asked. I was the person with horrible red hair and a mound of pink crust surrounding a diamond in her ear. I was at risk, and I had just made out with a girl in a bathroom. I got into the car.

By the way, I'm not usually attracted to danger," I said. "Up until now I've led a pretty boring life." "Boredom is good!" Dr. Rasman looked pleased. "Boredom is why God invented books. Are you still in your book club?

If every member of the human race evinced a fondness for literature and even a moderate level of dexterity with the written word, I would be a happier, if not more well-adjusted, man.

I wish him episodes of glorious, sun-washed tedium and a loss of innocence he will contemplate for the rest of his life.

don't waste your time being impressed by people (usually men) who are already adequately impressed by themselves.

Now in my middle fifties, an irrelevant codger, I find it discomfiting to see this generation dancing to the music of apocalypse and carrying their psychic burdens in front of them like infants in arms.

I found the project to be a bit quiet (that is, dull), which may have led to the manuscript's current confabulation—a pseudo autobiography in which the speaker portrays herself as a fifteen-year-old girl/cheetah amalgam.

During the summer, when the students were gone, she looked at the members of the professoriat muddling slowly across the quad and imagined she was working at a nursing home.