“Who often reads will sometimes wish to write.” – George Crabbe, Tales: Edward Shore
“Who often reads will sometimes wish to write.” – George Crabbe, Tales: Edward Shore
Month: February 2024
“One can never be alone enough when one writes.” – Franz Kafka
“Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer – he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave on which to ride in. Delay is instinctive with him. He waits for the surge (of emotion? Of strength? Of courage?) that will carry him along. I have no warm-up exercises, other than to take an occasional drink. I am apt to let something simmer for a while in my mind before trying to put it into words…I revise a great deal. I know when something is right because bells begin ringing and lights flash. I’m not at all sure what the ‘necessary equipment’ is for a writer – it seems to vary greatly with the individual. Some writers are equipped with extrasensory perception. Some have a good ear, like O’Hara. Some are equipped with humor – although not really as many as you think they are. Some are equipped with a massive intellect like Wilson. Some are prodigious. I do think the ability to evaluate one’s own stuff with reasonable accuracy is a helpful piece of equipment.” – E.B. White, Writers at Work
“I never learned anything about writing in school and was never greatly interested in my composition courses because I was generally asked to write on an assigned subject, which I could never do. I always had to find my subject for myself.” – Edward Wagenknecht
“I want to write about love – about being a human being – about loneliness – about being a woman. I want to write about an encounter on an island. A man who changed my life. I want to write about a change that was accidental and a change that was deliberate. I want to write about moments I regard as gifts, good moments and bad moments. I don’t believe that the knowledge or experience that is part of me is any greater than what others have…It is not Liv Ullmann people meet in magazines and newspapers that I shall be writing about…I feel that I am afraid of revealing myself. Afraid that what I write will leave me vulnerable and no longer able to defend myself.” – Liv Ullmann, Changing
“My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” – Psalms 45:1 2 Feb 7
“A writer may be inspired occasionally: That’s his good luck; but he doesn’t learn to write by inspiration: he works at it.” – Katherine Anne Porter, My First Speech
“I shall write better, but never, I think, so well as I talk; for then I feel inspired. The means are pleasant; my voice excites me, my pen never.” – Margaret Fuller, Memoirs
“It takes a lover to write a novel of love, even before it takes a writer.” – G.J. Nathan, Monks are Monks
“I can’t think of a thing to write. It could be another case of writer’s block…but most likely it’s much more widespread affliction…brain cramp.” – Perfesser
In God's Perfect Time 