#tin

A novel's whole pattern is rarely apparent at the outset of writing, or even at the end; that is when the writer finds out what a novel is about, and the job becomes one of understanding and deepening or sharpening what is already written. That is finding the theme. ↗

— Diane Johnson

#already #apparent #becomes #deepening #end

That was one of the best, exciting things for me to play with them. They were very young and eager to go. I'd been playing with a band that was mostly old folks that had been together so long we couldn't do anything to excite each other. ↗

— Earl Scruggs

#band #been #best #each #eager

I'm not the only one who feels the sting of continually losing. ↗

— Eddie Bernice Johnson

#feels #i #losing #only #sting

As the chapters took shape, a change came over her. It was the double-sided recognition that this book, the last that she would write, might achieve esteem and success equal to her great novel, but that its emotional heart would lie in her own unhappiness for having failed to find the one thing she wanted. For the first time she was a character in her own writing, and her frailties and mistakes were trapped on the page by the beauty and unsparing focus of her prose. Towards the end it was a battle to finish a page. The story was the story she had told herself for decades, deep within her own mind, and now as it grew, line by line, on the paper before her, she wrestled with each turn in the path all over again, as if it were still possible to change its course with the power of her words. ↗

— Frederick Weisel

#failing #frederick-weisel #story #teller #weisel

There will be a meeting of the great powers who will disagree, and the next noise we hear will be the screeching of elevators going up and down from heaven to hell. ↗

— Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

#down #elevators #going #great #hear

Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the very word poetry scares people. They think of their grade school teachers reciting 'Hiawatha' and they groan. ↗

— Erica Jong

#grade #grade school #language #lives #most

The music of language became extremely important to me, and obvious to me. By the time I was seven I was writing myself. I was a poet. ↗

— June Jordan

#by the time #extremely #i #important #language

I think it no accident that most of those emigrating to America in the 19th century identified with the Democratic Party. We are a heterogeneous party made up of Americans of diverse backgrounds. ↗

— Barbara Jordan

#accident #america #backgrounds #century #democratic

I'm in Alabama. First thing I want to say is Roll Tide! I was at the Alabama/Georgia game last year sitting right in the middle of the Alabama section and saw that they rolled all over them! ↗

— Brian Jordan

#first #first thing #game #georgia #i

I can't do a film if I don't start with the writing. ↗

— Neil Jordan

#i #start #writing