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Guest Post, by Todd Zuniga: A Sentence About a Sentence I Love

“If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new.”

—Voltaire

I saw the above quote in the movie Tadpole (2002) and immediately mis-memorized it: “No matter what happens, at least we can say we had an adventure”; and for awhile I carried that mis-quote with me, a sort of positive mantra that tick-tocked in my head when going got choppy, and it took years before I used Google to get it right, and discovered: holy wow, was I off, and I liked that I had read it differently, that my brain had re-constructed his words into a more positive light — though, reading his quote now, seven days before I move to his mother country, I think: what he wrote was not so negative; I think: what I misconstrued isn’t all that positive.

Todd Zuniga is the s the founding editor of Opium magazine.

  • John Madera is the author of Nervosities (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024). His other fiction is published in Conjunctions, Salt Hill, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and many other journals. His nonfiction is published in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. Recipient of an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, New York State Council on the Arts awardee John Madera lives in New York City, Rhizomatic and manages and edits Big Other.

2 thoughts on “Guest Post, by Todd Zuniga: A Sentence About a Sentence I Love

  1. great sentence(s)!

    In Opium, I always find something new and pleasant. Something that stays with me.

    Although, Todd, I immediately lost the pin you made for me at AWP.

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