Reads tagged with “writing”

Dani Shapiro on the Pleasures and Perils of Writing and the Creative Life

“It is in the thousands of days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert, and alive.”

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The Art of “Creative Sleep”: Stephen King on Writing and Wakeful Dreaming

“In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives.”

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In Pursuit of the Extraordinary: Anaïs Nin Reads from Her Famous Diaries

“Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. … I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist.”

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Anaïs Nin on Writing, the Future of the Novel, and How Keeping a Diary Enhances Creativity: Wisdom from a Rare 1947 Chapbook

“It is in the moments of emotional crisis that human beings reveal themselves most accurately.”

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Edgar Allan Poe on the Joy of Marginalia and What Handwriting Reveals about Character

“In the marginalia … we talk only to ourselves; we therefore talk freshly — boldly — originally — with abandonment — without conceit.”

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Ray Bradbury on How List-Making Can Boost Your Creativity

How to feel your way toward something honest, hidden under the trapdoor on the top of your skull.

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Nobel Laureate Alice Munro on the Secret of a Great Story

“A story … has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.”

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William Faulkner on Writing, the Purpose of Art, Working in a Brothel, and the Meaning of Life

“The only environment the artist needs is whatever peace, whatever solitude, and whatever pleasure he can get at not too high a cost.”

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Samuel Johnson on Writing and Creative Doggedness

“Composition is for the most part an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.”

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David Foster Wallace on Writing, Death, and Redemption

“You don’t have to think very hard to realize that our dread of both relationships and loneliness … has to do with angst about death, the recognition that I’m going to die, and die very much alone, and the rest of the world is going to go merrily on without me.”

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Reads tagged with “writing”

“It is in the thousands of days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert, and alive.”

“In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives.”

“Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. … I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist.”

“It is in the moments of emotional crisis that human beings reveal themselves most accurately.”

“In the marginalia … we talk only to ourselves; we therefore talk freshly — boldly — originally — with abandonment — without conceit.”

How to feel your way toward something honest, hidden under the trapdoor on the top of your skull.

“A story … has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.”

“The only environment the artist needs is whatever peace, whatever solitude, and whatever pleasure he can get at not too high a cost.”

“Composition is for the most part an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.”

“You don’t have to think very hard to realize that our dread of both relationships and loneliness … has to do with angst about death, the recognition that I’m going to die, and die very much alone, and the rest of the world is going to go merrily on without me.”

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