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Quote by Thomas Mallon

“My prescription for writer's block is to face the fact that there is no such thing.... Writing well is difficult, but one can always write something. And then, with a lot of work, make it better. It's a question of having enough will and ambition, not of hoping to evade this mysterious hysteria people are always talking about.”

Quote by Thomas Mallon

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Thomas Mallon
Thomas Mallon

Thomas Mallon is an American novelist known for his insightful reexaminations of historical figures and events. His works, often presented in a fictional form, delve into real historical contexts and have been highly praised by readers and critics alike. more

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“But once an original book has been written - and no more than one or two appear in a century - men of letters imitate it, in other words, they copy it so that hundreds of thousands of books are published on exactly the same theme, with slightly different titles and modified phraseology. This should be able to be achieved by apes, who are essentially imitators, provided, of course, that they are able to make use of language.”

MenShouldWritingHas BeensTwoBookDifferentUseAbleCoursesLanguageWrittenCenturyLettersOriginalsTitlesThemeCopiesApesImitatorUse Of Language
Book:Planet of the Apes
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“We fret about words, we writers. Words mean. Words point. They are arrows. Arrows stuck in the rough hide of reality. And the more portentous, more general the word, the more they can also resemble rooms or tunnels. They can expand, or cave in. They can come to be filled with a bad smell. They will often remind us of other rooms, where we'd rather dwell or where we think we are already living. They can be spaces we lose the art or the wisdom of inhabiting. And eventually those volumes of mental intention we no longer know how to inhabit will be abandoned, boarded up, closed down.”

ThinkingKnowsWritingMeanArtRealityLosesSpaceRoomsKnow HowFilledIntentionSmellStuckRoughAbandonedVolumeCavesArrowsTunnelsMean Words
Author:Susan Sontag
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