Dept. of Self-Improvement

I like this quote from Junot Diaz, the writer who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for fiction:

Mr. Diaz said he kicked around the idea for his first novel for about four years and then spent seven years writing it. “In some ways I think that this book waited for me to become a better person before it wrote itself,” he said.

This line of thinking holds hope for us all, after our own modest fashions. For example, in some ways I think that my kitchen has been waiting for me to become a better person before it cleans itself. Unfortunately I don't think there's a Pulitzer waiting for me after that, unless they come up with a Pulitzer Prize for There Not Being Crud on the Stove.

Meanwhile, the music Pulitzer went to David Lang for an extended vocal quartet after Hans Christian Andersen, "The Little Match Girl Passion"; as Justin Davidson notes you can listen to it online via Carnegie Hall, which commissioned the piece.