#rite

Now, as I understand it, the bards were feared. They were respected, but more than that they were feared. If you were just some magician, if you'd pissed off some witch, then what's she gonna do, she's gonna put a curse on you, and what's gonna happen? Your hens are gonna lay funny, your milk's gonna go sour, maybe one of your kids is gonna get a hare-lip or something like that — no big deal. You piss off a bard, and forget about putting a curse on you, he might put a satire on you. And if he was a skilful bard, he puts a satire on you, it destroys you in the eyes of your community, it shows you up as ridiculous, lame, pathetic, worthless, in the eyes of your community, in the eyes of your family, in the eyes of your children, in the eyes of yourself, and if it's a particularly good bard, and he's written a particularly good satire, then three hundred years after you're dead, people are still gonna be laughing, at what a twat you were. ↗

— Alan Moore

#artists-way #bard #irony #modernity-is-a-sickness #musicians

We aren't suggesting that mental instability or unhappiness makes one a better poet, or a poet at all; and contrary to the romantic notion of the artist suffering for his or her work, we think these writers achieved brilliance in spite of their suffering, not because of it. ↗

— Dorianne Laux

#poetry #writer #writing #romantic

Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the lights he was able to steal and carry home swiftly out of the rays of some insight that suddenly dawned on him, while another thinker offers us nothing but shadows - images in black and grey of what had built up in his soul the day before. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#drafts #ideas #insight #notes #thinkers

...the next time you need a piece of apparently obscure information, try asking a science fiction writer. You might be surprised. ↗

— Alastair Reynolds

#science

To most, being locked away in solitary with nothing but pen and paper would prove a hard punishment. What a strange creature who views this as heaven. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#richelle #richelle-goodrich #writers #writing #richelle-goodrich

And people turn to internet with the hope that in this virtual world, where real identity need not be disclosed, they will find someone before whom they could be their true self,without any pretensions and get an opportunity to release the pent-up emotions and feel light. ↗

— Chitralekha Paul

#internet #self #writers #writing #internet

Humility is an essential quality in writers who want to write well. ↗

— Margaret Jean Langstaff

#writing #writing-craft #writing-process #writing-craft

Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name. ↗

— Vladimir Nabokov

#fame #lolita #names #obscure #writers

When one writer tries to silence another, he silences every writer-and in the end he also silences himself. ↗

— David Leavitt

#leavitt #quote #writer #censorship

If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write! ↗