The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “writing”

Jonathan Franzen on How to Write About Nature, with a Side of Rachel Carson and Alice in Wonderland
Jonathan Franzen on How to Write About Nature, with a Side of Rachel Carson and Alice in Wonderland

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Octavia Butler’s Advice on Writing
Octavia Butler’s Advice on Writing

“No matter how tired you get, no matter how you feel like you can’t possibly do this, somehow you do.”

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May Sarton on Writing, Gardening, and the Importance of Patience Over Will in Creative Work
May Sarton on Writing, Gardening, and the Importance of Patience Over Will in Creative Work

“Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it cannot be done on will alone.”

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Maya Angelou on Writing and Our Responsibility to Our Creative Gifts
Maya Angelou on Writing and Our Responsibility to Our Creative Gifts

“I believe talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it.”

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Virginia Woolf on the Courage to Create Rather Than Cater and the Remedy for Self-Doubt
Virginia Woolf on the Courage to Create Rather Than Cater and the Remedy for Self-Doubt

“One must face the despicable vanity which is at the root of all this niggling and haggling.”

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Working Out, Working In: Applying the Six Principles of Athletic Training to Writing and Creative Work
Working Out, Working In: Applying the Six Principles of Athletic Training to Writing and Creative Work

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Albert Camus on Writing and the Importance of Stubbornness in Creative Work
Albert Camus on Writing and the Importance of Stubbornness in Creative Work

“There is no greatness without a little stubbornness… Works of art are not born in flashes of inspiration but in a daily fidelity.”

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May Sarton on How to Cultivate Your Talent
May Sarton on How to Cultivate Your Talent

“A talent grows by being used, and withers if it is not used.”

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Storytelling and the Art of Tenderness: Olga Tokarczuk’s Magnificent Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
Storytelling and the Art of Tenderness: Olga Tokarczuk’s Magnificent Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

“Tenderness is the most modest form of love. It is the kind of love that does not appear in the scriptures or the gospels, no one swears by it, no one cites it… It appears wherever we take a close and careful look at another being, at something that is not our ‘self.’”

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Nick Cave on Songwriting, the Mystery of the Unconscious, and the Sweet Severity of Truth
Nick Cave on Songwriting, the Mystery of the Unconscious, and the Sweet Severity of Truth

“Metaphor can create a merciful sense of distance from the cruel idea, or the unspeakable truth, and allow it to exist within us as a kind of poetic radiance, as a work of art.”

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