Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
--Douglas Adams

Alice and Bob were walking in the woods when a snarling tiger jumped out in front of them.

Alice bent down and starting changing into running shoes.

"Why are you doing that?" asked Bob. "You can't outrun a tiger."

"I don't have to out..." said Alice before the tiger sank its razor-sharp death teeth into the soft flesh around her jugular. It takes at least a minute to change shoes, and the tiger was only, oh, let's say 20 meters away to begin with.

Then the tiger killed Bob, too. Not because it was hungry. Just because it lived for the moment when it saw the life go out of its victims' eyes.

Moral: Tigers are nature's perfect killing machine. By the time you see one, it's already too late.

        He is brilliant, yes, but evil.   
So evil I despair of comprehending him.  
This man doesn't want to murder his 
father and possess his mother: he wants 
to murder God and possess the cosmos.  
He would tear the earth from its 
foundations and throw the oceans from 
their beds, pausing only to lick the salt 
from his fingers.  His strength is the 
strength that extends beyond sanity.
        I know not the origin of these 
desires.  As a child he would dream of 
shaping the hills by the clapping of his 
hands, the nodding of his head.  Entire 
nations would be his plaything, all of 
literature a decoration for his room.
        As he grew, so did his imaginings.  
He saw himself capturing souls in glass 
bottles, of folding the sky into quarters 
and using it to wipe the sweat from his 
forehead.  He planned to suck the 
atmosphere into his lungs in one breath, 
to still storms with a word.  He studied to 
distill a dream that could cause a 
nightmare to bolt from its sleep.  He 
searched to make the atoms cry out in 
pain.
        And now, what more is to be 
said?  His rage grow every day.  I knew 
him once, he recognizes me no longer.  I 
will gaze at him, and tremble.

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to "Black Spring."
3. Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can't create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don't be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

This is the Talking Robot Mouth, and it's intended as a robotic emulation of the mechanical process that humans use to produce speech. And yet it stills sounds like a wet Atari begging for death.

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

--Jane Kenyon