“To disguise nothing, to conceal nothing, to write about those things that are closest to our pain, our happiness; to write about our sexual clumsiness, the agonies of Tantalus, the depth of our discouragement-what we glimpse in our dreams-our despair. To write about the foolish agonies of anxiety, the refreshment of our strength when these are ended; to write about our painful search for self, jeopardized by a stranger in the post office, a half-seen face in a train window, to write about the continents and populations of our dreams, about love and death, good and evil, the end of the world.” WorldWritingEndsSelfDreamPainFacesEvilHalfDespairOfficeAnxietyWindowTrainDepthPopulationPainfulStrangerFoolishPostsGood And EvilContinentsClosestAgonyDisguiseGlimpseOur DreamsEnd Of The WorldDiscouragementLove And DeathPost OfficeRefreshmentsClumsiness Author:John Cheever
“The best I can say is that it's better for me to write about despair and darkness than to be incapable of getting off the sofa. It's better to write about suicide than to contemplate it too heavily.” WritingI CanDarknessDespairSuicideContemplatingIncapableSofas Author:Paul Westerberg
“But the thing that stands eternally in the way of really good writing is always one: the virtual impossibility of lifting to the imagination those things which lie under the direct scrutiny of the senses, close to the nose. It is this difficulty that sets a value upon all works of art and makes them a necessity. The senses witnessing what is immediately before them in detail see a finality which they cling to in despair, not knowing which way to turn. Thus this so-called natural or scientific array becomes fixed, the walking devil of modern life.” WayWritingArtLyingValuesTurnsImaginationNaturalKnowingModernWalkingDespairDevilDirectDifficultyDetailsSensesNosesFixedWorks Of ArtNot KnowingImpossibilityModern LifeLiftingScrutinyGood WritingFinality Book:Kora in Hell: Improvisations Source: Kora in Hell: Improvisations
“It is precisely the sort of thing I am always trying to do in my writing -- to present my unhappy reader with a wide-ranged chaos -- of actions and reactions, thoughts, memories and feelings -- in the vain hope that at the end he will see that the whole thing represents only one moment, one feeling, one person. A raging, trumpeting jungle of associations, and then I announce at the end of it, with a gesture of despair, "This is I!” WritingTryingPersonsEndsWholeMomentsFeelingsActionMemoriesReaderDespairChaosWideRageUnhappyReactionsVainAssociationGesturesJungleAlways TryingAction And Reaction Book:Blue Voyage: A Novel Source: Blue Voyage: A Novel