Jack Kerouac
Determination is the key; push through the reluctance. It's one lonely unbeatable will, against silence & darkness which has no defence.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
like the kinks
Jonathan Franzen
...it might have smoothed some kinks out of the work that were better not smoothed out. As a journalist, I’m always striving to become more professional, but as a fiction writer I’d rather remain an amateur.
...it might have smoothed some kinks out of the work that were better not smoothed out. As a journalist, I’m always striving to become more professional, but as a fiction writer I’d rather remain an amateur.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
what a writer needs
Ernest Hemingway
A writer without a sense of justice and of injustice would be better off editing the yearbook of a school for exceptional children than writing novels. ... The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.
A writer without a sense of justice and of injustice would be better off editing the yearbook of a school for exceptional children than writing novels. ... The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Time magazine
Allen Ginsberg
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
from his poem "America" (1956)
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
from his poem "America" (1956)
truth in fiction
Matthias Politycki
Die Ehre des Schriftstellers liegt doch gerade darin, die Wahrheit mittels Phantasie erst so richtig auf den Punkt zu bringen!
Die Ehre des Schriftstellers liegt doch gerade darin, die Wahrheit mittels Phantasie erst so richtig auf den Punkt zu bringen!
Friday, August 17, 2012
great writing
Archibald MacLeish
There was a time when I wondered whether the restrained & tense understatement of your prose would not limit you to a certain kind of material. Now no one can wonder that. The world of this book is a complete world, a world of emotion as well as of feeling. To subject the whole experience of a man's soul to the pure & perfect art of your prose is a great, a very great, achievement. ... You become in one book the great novelist of our time.
from a letter to Ernest Hemingway regarding "A Farewell to Arms"
There was a time when I wondered whether the restrained & tense understatement of your prose would not limit you to a certain kind of material. Now no one can wonder that. The world of this book is a complete world, a world of emotion as well as of feeling. To subject the whole experience of a man's soul to the pure & perfect art of your prose is a great, a very great, achievement. ... You become in one book the great novelist of our time.
from a letter to Ernest Hemingway regarding "A Farewell to Arms"
Thursday, August 16, 2012
professional writer
Anthony Burgess
The term professional [writer] is not meant to imply a high standard of commitment and attainment: it meant then, as it still does, the pursuit of a trade or calling to the end of paying the rent and buying liquor. I leave the myth of inspiration and agonised creative inaction to the amateurs.
The term professional [writer] is not meant to imply a high standard of commitment and attainment: it meant then, as it still does, the pursuit of a trade or calling to the end of paying the rent and buying liquor. I leave the myth of inspiration and agonised creative inaction to the amateurs.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Marilyn Monroe
Arthur Miller on Marilyn Monroe
Beneath all her insouciance and wit, death was her companion everywhere and at all times, and it may be that its unacknowledged presence was what lent her poignancy, dancing at the edge of oblivion as she was.
Beneath all her insouciance and wit, death was her companion everywhere and at all times, and it may be that its unacknowledged presence was what lent her poignancy, dancing at the edge of oblivion as she was.
Monday, August 13, 2012
transcience of the world
Dogen Kigan
To what may this world be likened?
Moonlight in a dewdrop
Falling from a duck's beak.
Waka poem 60
To what may this world be likened?
Moonlight in a dewdrop
Falling from a duck's beak.
Waka poem 60
Saturday, August 11, 2012
on book editors
Jack Kerouac
It's a terrible thing to contemplate the fact that editors ... are able to select those aspects of the novel that read best and therefore feel conscience-free to remove whatever which in the author's crucible of torn imaginings seems most pithy, but to the reader most delaying in his hot sin of "wanting to see what happens."
It's a terrible thing to contemplate the fact that editors ... are able to select those aspects of the novel that read best and therefore feel conscience-free to remove whatever which in the author's crucible of torn imaginings seems most pithy, but to the reader most delaying in his hot sin of "wanting to see what happens."
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
be yourself
Paul Bowles
I think it is a very harmful, disruptive thing to ask why am I, I? There isn't any why.
I think it is a very harmful, disruptive thing to ask why am I, I? There isn't any why.
Monday, August 6, 2012
moxie
Billie Holiday
I ain't good-looking
and my hair ain't curls.
I ain't good looking
and my hair ain't curls.
But my mother, she give me something,
it's going to carry me through this world.
from Billie's Blues
I ain't good-looking
and my hair ain't curls.
I ain't good looking
and my hair ain't curls.
But my mother, she give me something,
it's going to carry me through this world.
from Billie's Blues
the modern writer
Peter Matthiessen on Albert Camus
I never forget what Camus said in accepting his Nobel: modern writers can no longer isolate themselves in the artistic endeavor but must speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
I never forget what Camus said in accepting his Nobel: modern writers can no longer isolate themselves in the artistic endeavor but must speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
the job of writers
Antonio Tabucchi
It’s the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection. Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.
It’s the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection. Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
on writing
Erskine Caldwell
You have to use your imagination to invent something better than life because life itself is dull and prosaic.
You have to use your imagination to invent something better than life because life itself is dull and prosaic.
on writing
V. S. Naipaul
"...[writing] is the only noble calling. It is noble because it deals with the truth. You have to look for ways of dealing with your experience. You have to understand it and you have to understand the world. Writing is a constant striving after a deeper understanding. That is pretty noble.
"...[writing] is the only noble calling. It is noble because it deals with the truth. You have to look for ways of dealing with your experience. You have to understand it and you have to understand the world. Writing is a constant striving after a deeper understanding. That is pretty noble.
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