1. Erica Jong, “Fear of Flying” (novel, 1973)

a. ____ We came from Bethlehem , Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle. My sisters and I were all counting on having one birthday apiece during our twelve-month mission.

2. Langston Hughes, “The Dinner Guest: Me” (poem, 1951)

b. ____ Though it smells of seaweed and ruin, this little traveling case comes with such lavish lining!

3. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “Gift from the Sea” (memoir, 1955)

c. ____ I recalled when I worked in the woods and the bars of Madras , Oregon . That short-haired joy and roughness— America —your stupidity. I could almost love you again.

4. Callie Khouri, “Thelma & Louise” (screenplay, 1991)

d. ____ There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six on them. And married a seventh.

5. Mark Doty, “A Green Crab's Shell” (poem, 1995)

e. ____ The lobster is delicious, the wine divine, and center of attention at the damask table, mine.

6. Natalie Goldberg, “Writing Down the Bones” (nonfiction, 1986)

f. ____ One never knows what chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind; what perfectly rounded stone, what rare shell from the ocean floor.

7. Jack Kerouac, “On the Road” (autobiographical novel, 1957)

g. ____ If there's any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed, but... who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt.

8. Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, “Sideways” (screenplay adapted from the novel of the same name by Rex Pickett, 2004)

h. ____ I walk into the classroom in Elkton , Minnesota . Early April the fields around the school are wet, unplowed, not seeded yet. And the sky is deep gray.

9. Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan, Before Sunrise ” (screenplay, 1995)

i. ____ I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I'd opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive.

10. Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible (novel, 1998)

j. ____ I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead.

11. Julia Cameron, “The Right to Write” (nonfiction, 1998)

k. ____ For awhile I carried a black leather blank-sheet book and I sketched the locations in which I wrote. I seemed to be using the sketches like Polaroids: I was here doing this.

12. Gary Snyder, “I Went Into The Maverick Bar” (poem, 1975)

l. ____ Certain words and phrases just keep drifting through my mind, things like, incarceration, cavity search, death by electrocution, life in prison, shit like that, know what I'm sayin', so do I want to come out alive...