The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “writing”

Mary Oliver’s Advice on Writing
Mary Oliver’s Advice on Writing

“Look for verbs of muscle, adjectives of exactitude.”

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Rebecca Solnit on Rewriting the World’s Broken Stories and the Paradigm-Shifting Power of Calling Things by Their True Names
Rebecca Solnit on Rewriting the World’s Broken Stories and the Paradigm-Shifting Power of Calling Things by Their True Names

“To name something truly is to lay bare what may be brutal or corrupt — or important or possible — and key to the work of changing the world is changing the story.”

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The Only Story in the World: John Steinbeck on Kindness, Good and Evil, the Wellspring of Good Writing
The Only Story in the World: John Steinbeck on Kindness, Good and Evil, the Wellspring of Good Writing

“Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love.”

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Zadie Smith on What Writers Can Learn from Some of History’s Greatest Dancers
Zadie Smith on What Writers Can Learn from Some of History’s Greatest Dancers

“Between propriety and joy choose joy.”

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The Continuous Thread of Revelation: Eudora Welty on Writing, Time, and Embracing the Nonlinearity of How We Become Who We Are
The Continuous Thread of Revelation: Eudora Welty on Writing, Time, and Embracing the Nonlinearity of How We Become Who We Are

“Greater than scene… is situation. Greater than situation is implication. Greater than all of these is a single, entire human being, who will never be confined in any frame.”

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Elizabeth Gilbert Reads “The Early Hours” by Adam Zagajewski
Elizabeth Gilbert Reads “The Early Hours” by Adam Zagajewski

An ode to the unsuspected gifts from the muse of sluggishness.

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Anton Chekhov’s 6 Rules for a Great Story
Anton Chekhov’s 6 Rules for a Great Story

Mastering the essential complementarity of compassion and total objectivity.

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Jeanette Winterson’s 10 Tips on Writing
Jeanette Winterson’s 10 Tips on Writing

“Turn up for work. Discipline allows creative freedom. No discipline equals no freedom.”

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The Constitution of the Inner Country: Leonard Cohen on Language and the Poetry of Presence
The Constitution of the Inner Country: Leonard Cohen on Language and the Poetry of Presence

“The poem is nothing but information. It is the Constitution of the inner country.”

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Ursula K. Le Guin on Art, Storytelling, and the Power of Language to Transform and Redeem
Ursula K. Le Guin on Art, Storytelling, and the Power of Language to Transform and Redeem

“One of the functions of art is to give people the words to know their own experience… Storytelling is a tool for knowing who we are and what we want.”

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