The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “writing”

Who Invented Writing? An Animated Historical Detective Story
Who Invented Writing? An Animated Historical Detective Story

From Sumerian cuneiform to hieroglyphics to Chinese script, a tale of simultaneous invention.

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Hemingway on Writing, Knowledge, and the Dangers of Ego
Hemingway on Writing, Knowledge, and the Dangers of Ego

“All bad writers are in love with the epic.”

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The Writer’s Technique in Thirteen Theses: Walter Benjamin’s Timeless Advice on Writing
The Writer’s Technique in Thirteen Theses: Walter Benjamin’s Timeless Advice on Writing

“The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself.”

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Beloved Film Critic Roger Ebert on Writing, Life, and Mortality
Beloved Film Critic Roger Ebert on Writing, Life, and Mortality

“Most people choose to write a blog. I needed to.”

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The Philosophy of Style: Herbert Spencer on the Economy of Attention and the Ideal Writer (1852)
The Philosophy of Style: Herbert Spencer on the Economy of Attention and the Ideal Writer (1852)

“To have a specific style is to be poor in speech.”

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Daily Rituals: A Guided Tour of Writers’ and Artists’ Creative Habits
Daily Rituals: A Guided Tour of Writers’ and Artists’ Creative Habits

Hemingway wrote standing, Nabokov on index cards, Twain while puffing cigars, and Sitwell in an open coffin.

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E.B. White on the Art of the Essay and Why Egotism Is Essential for the Essay Writer
E.B. White on the Art of the Essay and Why Egotism Is Essential for the Essay Writer

“Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.”

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Malcolm Cowley on the Four Stages of Writing: Lessons from the First Five Years of The Paris Review
Malcolm Cowley on the Four Stages of Writing: Lessons from the First Five Years of The Paris Review

“The germ of a story is a new and simple element introduced into an existing situation or mood.”

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Work Alone: Ernest Hemingway’s 1954 Nobel Acceptance Speech
Work Alone: Ernest Hemingway’s 1954 Nobel Acceptance Speech

“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.”

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Joy Williams’s Daily Writing Routine
Joy Williams’s Daily Writing Routine

“…all messages which will fuel the morrow’s pages coming to me in friendly and artful dreams…”

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