All interesting, worthwhile humans suffered and struggled and overcame adversity of one sort or another. Pain is constructive. Misery can be useful. I believed this the way I believe the sun rises in the east. Then I had children, and I slowly began to disbelieve and disavow it.

I don't want to believe it - that parenting itself makes art hard, that you must always sacrifice one for the other, that there is something inherently selfish and greedy and darkly obsessive in the desire to care as much about the thing you are writing or making as you do about the other humans in your life. What parent would want to believe this?

Kim Brooks Quotes