The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “writing”

John McPhee on Writing and the Relationship Between Artistic Originality and Self-Doubt
John McPhee on Writing and the Relationship Between Artistic Originality and Self-Doubt

“Never stop battling for the survival of your own unique stamp.”

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Toni Morrison on the Power of Art and the Writer’s Singular Service to Humanity
Toni Morrison on the Power of Art and the Writer’s Singular Service to Humanity

“Art invites us to know beauty and to solicit it from even the most tragic of circumstances. Art reminds us that we belong here. And if we serve, we last.”

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French Philosopher Maurice Blanchot on Writing, the Dual Power of Language to Reveal and Conceal, and What It Really Means to See
French Philosopher Maurice Blanchot on Writing, the Dual Power of Language to Reveal and Conceal, and What It Really Means to See

“To see is certainly always to see at a distance, but by allowing distance to give back what it removes from us… To see is to experience the continuous and to celebrate the sun, that is, beyond the sun: the One.”

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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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Poet Ross Gay on the Body as an Instrument of Thought and the Delights of Writing by Hand
Poet Ross Gay on the Body as an Instrument of Thought and the Delights of Writing by Hand

In praise of the manual-mental “loop-de-looping we call language.”

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Advice on Writing from Emily Dickinson’s Editor
Advice on Writing from Emily Dickinson’s Editor

“Oftentimes a word shall speak what accumulated volumes have labored in vain to utter: there may be years of crowded passion in a word, and half a life in a sentence.”

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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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