Hey everyone, happy new year. We have a special treat for you today. You may have heard in the past few weeks, we've been working on an experiment, a new mini podcast series called Pull Quote. The episodes are short audio gyms that we've dug up from our archives and from elsewhere. We started making these because we need them.

Short doses of reflection when we want a little grounding.

And this week we are sending our first batch of episodes

to those of you who've donated to support the show.

But as we start this new year together,

we thought we'd share the first pull quote with all of you.

I very much believe in plunging in and to have the good sense to see, well, it's going nowhere and making a new start, reversing it.

I don't think I'm self-pitying.

Well, not in public anyway, though I must say self-pitying. Well, not in public anyway.

Though I must say self-pity feels marvelous.

When I see people doing it, I think, oh, that looks wonderful.

This is writer Jamaica Kincaade.

As you start this new year, remember her words.

Jump in, try something new, and if it doesn't work,

you can always restart. And you decide whether self-pity works for you. It can be marvelous.

Yes, it's a narcissism. I like narcissism. I'm not so good at it. But it looks marvelous.

Jamaica Kincaid spoke to producer Sarah Montague back in 1996.

That's your pull quote.

From death, sex and money and WNYC, I'm Anna Sale.

Oh, it sounds beautiful.

We've had a lot of fun making these.

Thank you to those of you who have already donated to the show. If you want to hear the other pull quote episodes we've made, chip in $30 or more right now and we'll email you a special link every morning for a week where you can listen in. Plus, you'll get to tell us what you think about this pull quote series and whether we should make more.

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