“Life is flinching in the midst of breathing, gasping at the thought of dying. It’s climbing ropeless up sheer rock faces, groping… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“If a book can save—redeem us from the mediocrity of the mundane—surely, there must be a God.” — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“Writing is a beast to tame, an energy to transform. Whip that toad into a prince and French kiss it to life.… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“You want to get your book to press. You rush it through. Revision number twenty—done. Do you really need twenty more? Yes.… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I’ve had a fountain pen surgically implanted in my left index finger to save trouble. My body is tattooed with line upon… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“When I pour a bowl of Uncle Sam’s cereal, I never know if I should stand when I eat, salute it first,… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“Without the hard we stay too soft, and heaven is reduced to myths like life. Theology aside, it’s plain to see that… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“When reading a book, one hopes it doesn’t turn into a painful process. Predictable is bad enough. Laborious is acceptable if the… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“Texting is a sex toy: pleasurable but a substitute for the real thing. Love has a face. Video chatting is good, but… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I’ve never had a rat, never chased one. I chase my own tail and that’s enough. I must now make plans for… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I read a book, am vortexed in with no escape; my face contorts, eyelids frost, breath comes short, body longs, heart stop-starts.… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I think that’s why I write—the not knowing and the blasted good feeling I get out of it all.” — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I’m typing away, wondering why I had that Pepsi Throwback at such a late hour. Caffeine is a compulsion. Art is an… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I continue to live inside a dichotomy: what was and what shall be. The pain in my skull is me trying to… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“Middle-age should be shot. Things about it gall me. First, that those younger despise the thought of getting old, and, hence, me.… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I suck the words word-dry to me, assimilated orderly at breakeye speed still hard and harder softer then line-lined book-dry ‘til not… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“Writing is making love under a crescent moon: I see shadows of what’s to come, and it’s enough; I have faith in… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“Nonfiction. I didn’t choose it as much as it chose me. It squatted and birthed me one raw winter day then jerked… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“This world rubs me raw, scours me smooth like an SOS pad put to a grease-caked skillet. And pain: it stabs and… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“A mist rises from a nearby mound. It could be me, that mist, or simply the caretaker’s mower-dust. If the breeze blows… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“Every once in a bestseller list, you come across a truly exceptional craftsman, a wordsmith so adept at cutting, shaping, and honing… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“In this book, much is metaphorical, not as it seems. It’s written for writing’s sake, as if I were to say, “Let… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I wish I could say he was a French professor, a French chef, or even a bilingual tutor, but I can’t. He… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I don’t know what it’s like to be a friend any more than you do. I think “hard” when it should be… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“The tides wash up the Pearl of Great Price; I see it clearly. There it is: the secret so secret that even… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I see an actress smoking a cigarette in an old Fred McMurray movie. She’s clever and beautiful and manipulative. I feel envy. I suddenly… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“Support our troops!” we cry, but I say, “Love our veterans!” And when he neglects church, take him cookies anyway. Sing him a song.… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“The setting sun threatened to consume me—it could have, you know. It would have been a beautiful death with an honorable eulogy: slain by… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“sunset and evening star hunching and bending sleeping and slipping virus pneumonia coughing and crying hope in the small things heaven looks brighter aching… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I was a late bloomer. I was still naïve about what 16 year olds today have known for years. I remember sitting up and… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“Split your skull—a hatchet works well enough. Take a more delicate instrument—a scalpel, perhaps—and make a hand-sized slit; it doesn’t matter where. Reach in… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“PLEASE TELL ME YOU KNOW OF SYLVIA PLATH Conventions bleed my soul squeeze me old wear me grey like a headstone in transit. It’s… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I don’t want to believe in boxes or one-way relationships; I’m naïve, you see. I’d rather moon the moon than flip off a friend,… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“God, O God, where art thou? Thou art as distant to me as the lady combing rice in the Yunnan Province of China or… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“Today I fed him right off the bat, and only checked Facebook twice.” — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
“I should have been conceived during Woodstock; it’s in my blood: that burning desire to turn an absolute on its head and see what’s… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image
