Brian Doyle (American writer)

Brian Doyle (1956 – May 27, 2017) was an American essayist, novelist, and editor. He was the longtime editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland from 1991 until his death. Quotes "Joyas Voladoras" (2004) Originally published in The American Scholar (Autumn 2004); collected in One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder (2019) Consider the hummingbird for a long moment. A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second. A hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser. A hummingbird’s heart is a lot of the hummingbird. It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine. Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old. No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside. So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one in the end—not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. External links Brian Doyle (American writer) Category:1956 births Category:2017 deaths Category:Novelists from New York City Category:Essayists from the United States Category:University of Notre Dame alumni Category:Editors from the United States