“In general, inquiry ceases when we adopt a theory. After that, we overlook whatever makes against it, and see and think, and talk and write, only in its favor. Indeed, when we have a snug, comfortable theory, to which we are much attached, they appear to us as a very mean set of facts that will not square with it.” ThinkingWritingMeanFactsTheoryComfortableFavorsCeaseSquaresInquiryVery Mean Book:Intuitions and Summaries of Thought Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
“I myself hate that old Hemingwayesque paradigm of the writer as prizefighter and I have tried hard to create an alternate one for myself. When Anne Sexton admonished me, "We are all writing God's poem," I took it to mean there should be no competition between writers because we are all involved in a common project, a common prayer. But to Gore's and Norman's generation, particularly those male writers who served in the second world war, the prizefighter paradigm remains.” WorldShouldWritingMeanWarHardHatePrayerCommonGenerationsInvolvedProjectsRemainsCompetitionMalesWar Of The WorldsParadigmGoreSecond World WarSelf Hate Author:Erica Jong
“Underneath all his writing there is the settled determination to use certain words, to take certain attitudes, to produce a certain atmosphere; what he is seeing or thinking or feeling has hardly any influence on the way he writes. The reader can reply, ironically, "That's what it means to have a style"; but few people have so much of one, or one so obdurate that you can say of it, "It is a style that no subject can change.” PeopleThinkingWayWritingMeanUseFeelingsCertainAttitudeSeeingInfluenceSubjectsStyleProduceReaderDeterminationAtmosphere Author:Randall Jarrell
“Creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty.” GivingWritingMeanPersonsHas BeensWealthCreativityCreativeExpressionBirdCookingDancingTime SpentCreative ExpressionBird Watching Author:Anne Lamott
“I mean, I'm always happy if I have, like, humiliating asshole things that I did. I think: Oh good, that's a good story. Because if you write about humiliating asshole things other people do it doesn't work as well. I mean, you can, but you can get away with it better if you talk about what an asshole you are. It's much easier.” PeopleIfsThinkingWritingWellsMeanStoriesEasierGet AwayGood StoryHumiliatingAlways Happy Author:David Sedaris
“I compelled myself all through to write an exercise in verse, in a different form, every day of the year. I turned out my page every day, of some sort - I mean I didn't give a damn about the meaning, I just wanted to master the form - all the way from free verse, Walt Whitman, to the most elaborate of villanelles and ballad forms. Very good training. I've always told everybody who has ever come to me that I thought that was the first thing to do.” WayGivingWritingYearsFirstsMeanDifferentWantedFormMastersExercisePagesTrainingVery GoodDamnThings To DoVersesCompelledWaltBalladsDays Of The YearFree Verse Author:Conrad Aiken
“My books have done extremely well, I know. But I don't honestly feel much different from when I began to write. I still think we have a long way to go. I suppose my name means more in Nigeria today than it did five years ago. But I feel the job that literature should do in our community has not even started. It's not yet part of the life of the nation. We are still at the beginning. It's a big beginning, because now we are catching the next generation in the schools. When I was their age, I had nothing to read that had any relevance to my own environment.” ThinkingKnowsWayFeelsShouldWritingYearsWellsMeanLongStillsBookDifferentDoneBigsAgeTodaySchoolJobsNextLiteratureNamesNationsCommunityMy OwnEnvironmentFiveGenerationsYears AgoHonestlyFive YearsLong WayNext GenerationCatchingRelevanceOur CommunityNigeriaLong Way To Go Book:Conversations with Chinua Achebe Source: Conversations with Chinua Achebe
“Pseudo-modernists pursue individual style because they know they cannot make a name without it; but if they had lived in the eighteenth century their sole object would have been to write correctly, to conform to the manner of the period. In practice, their conforming individualism means an imitation, studiously concealed, of the eccentricities of poems which really are individual.” IfsKnowsWritingMeanHas BeensNamesIndividualPracticeCenturyStyleObjectsPeriodsPursueIndividualismSoleImitationConformConcealedEccentricityPseudoIndividual Style Author:Laura Riding
“I've been trying to write for as long as I can remember. But those first fifteen years didn't produce much of great interest. I mean, it embarrasses me very much to look back on my early poems--very few lines of any merit at all and lots of affectation. But there were quite a lot of them. That's a point in one's favor.” WritingTryingYearsFirstsLooksMeanLongI CanRememberInterestLinesProduceFavorsMeritFifteenFifteen Years Author:Kingsley Amis