The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “writing”

Inside Oliver Sacks’s Creative Process: The Beloved Writer’s Never-Before-Seen Manuscripts, Brainstorm Sheets, and Notes on Writing, Creativity, and the Brain
Inside Oliver Sacks’s Creative Process: The Beloved Writer’s Never-Before-Seen Manuscripts, Brainstorm Sheets, and Notes on Writing, Creativity, and the Brain

Inside the “buzzing, blooming chaos” of a brilliant mind at work.

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The Story Behind “Silent Spring”: How Rachel Carson’s Countercultural Courage Catalyzed the Environmental Movement
The Story Behind “Silent Spring”: How Rachel Carson’s Countercultural Courage Catalyzed the Environmental Movement

“It is, in the deepest sense, a privilege as well as a duty to have the opportunity to speak out — to many thousands of people — on something so important.”

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Toni Morrison on the Power of Language: Her Spectacular Nobel Acceptance Speech After Becoming the First African American Woman Awarded the Accolade
Toni Morrison on the Power of Language: Her Spectacular Nobel Acceptance Speech After Becoming the First African American Woman Awarded the Accolade

“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

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Chinua Achebe on How Storytelling Helps Us Survive History’s Rough Patches
Chinua Achebe on How Storytelling Helps Us Survive History’s Rough Patches

“There is no one way to anything.”

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Ursula K. Le Guin on Writing as Falling in Love
Ursula K. Le Guin on Writing as Falling in Love

“I function only by falling in love: with French and France; with the 15th Century; with microbiology, cosmology, sleep research…”

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William Faulkner on What Sherwood Anderson Taught Him About Writing, the Artist’s Task, and Being an American
William Faulkner on What Sherwood Anderson Taught Him About Writing, the Artist’s Task, and Being an American

“To be a writer, one has first got to be what he is.”

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The Conscience of Words: Susan Sontag on the Wisdom of Literature, the Danger of Opinions, and the Writer’s Task
The Conscience of Words: Susan Sontag on the Wisdom of Literature, the Danger of Opinions, and the Writer’s Task

“A writer ought not to be an opinion-machine… The job of the writer is to make us see the world as it is, full of many different claims and parts and experiences.”

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Patti Smith on Listening to the Creative Impulse and the Crucial Difference Between Writing Poetry and Songwriting
Patti Smith on Listening to the Creative Impulse and the Crucial Difference Between Writing Poetry and Songwriting

“In times of strife, we have our imagination, we have our creative impulse, which are things that are more important than material things. They are the things that we should magnify.”

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Elena Ferrante on the Myth of Inspiration, Writing on Demand, and the Central Truth of the Creative Process
Elena Ferrante on the Myth of Inspiration, Writing on Demand, and the Central Truth of the Creative Process

“Words draw out words: one can always write a banal, elegant, heartfelt, amusing coherent page on any subject, low or high, simple or complex, frivolous or fundamental.”

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Explainer, Elucidator, Enchanter: A Gradation of Great Writing
Explainer, Elucidator, Enchanter: A Gradation of Great Writing

A visual taxonomy to illuminate the difference between information, knowledge, and meaning.

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