Quote of the Day (Claire Messud, on Stories ‘To Calm the Chaos’)

“So many stories remain untold; so much that we have to learn, and to experience, is still hidden from the world. To attend to these stories is to slow our current hurtling, to calm the chaos, to return to what makes us human. It is to find the past and the present restored, as well as the possibility of the future. We can’t go on, we must go on: in this period of trial and transition, those of us for whom the power of the word is paramount must keep the flame alive. Nothing matters more.”—American novelist-essayist Claire Messud, from Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write: An Autobiography in Essays (2020)

(Photo of Claire Messud taken at the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival, Sept. 13, 2009, by Nightscream.)