“Writing songs is a profession; so it's not an attempt to take things from my interactions with other people and for some reason give them to a total stranger to listen to. I find it offensive to hear other people do that.” PeopleGivingWritingReasonSongStrangerProfessionInteractionOffensiveWriting SongsInteraction With Others Book:Will Oldham on Bonnie Source: Will Oldham on Bonnie
“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
“People like ourselves may see nothing wondrous in writing, but our anthropologists know how strange and magical it appears to a purely oral people - a conversation with no one and yet with everyone. What could be stranger than the silence one encounters when addressing a question to a text? What could be more metaphysically puzzling than addressing an unseen audience, as every writer of books must do? And correcting oneself because one knows that an unknown reader will disapprove or misunderstand?” PeopleKnowsWritingMayBookSilenceAudienceKnow HowStrangeReaderConversationOneselfStrangerEncountersUnseenWondrousCorrectingAnthropologistsPuzzling Book:Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
“The challenge to writers today, I think, is not to disown any part of our heritage. Whatever our theme in writing, it is old and tried. Whatever our place, it has been visited by the stranger, it will never be new again. It is only the vision that can be new; but that is enough.” ThinkingWritingHas BeensEnoughTodayChallengesVisionStrangerThemeHeritage Author:Eudora Welty
“Plasma on the wall/Write my name on your heart like I'm Lucille Ball/But love changes, a thug changes/And best friends become strangers” WritingHeartNamesWallBallsStrangerThugPlasma Author:Ras Kass