#writ

When explicit thinking patterns were in charge, light waves of particular lengths were thought to stimulate Jenny’s optical nerve, changing hue of her eye color. ↗

— Judy Byington

#pseudoscience #change

The denial of language is a suicidal one and we pay for it with our own lives. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#writing #communication

Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#prophetic #wisdom #writing #age

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#exageration #language #on-writing #power-of-words #superlatives

Do you think that Hemingway knew he was a writer at twenty years old? No, he did not. Or Fitzgerald, or Wolfe. This is a difficult concept to grasp. Hemingway didn't know he was Ernest Hemingway when he was a young man. Faulkner didn't know he was William Faulkner. But they had to take the first step. They had to call themselves writers. That is the first revolutionary act a writer has to make. It takes courage. But it's necessary ↗

— Pat Conroy

#courage

If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good ↗

— Ezra Pound

#courage #criticism #intellectuals #opinion #taboos

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our heats? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? ↗

— Annie Dillard

#reading #understanding #writing #writing-life #beauty

But this lump does not absolve me, because I got it through heedlessness, not though courage. I run my tongue over my lip and what do I do? I write. But bad literature brings no redemption. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#courage

Personal accounts flow from the heart and tend to be the most difficult to write. It's nearly impossible to remove the emotional undertones, and it takes so much courage to open those pages to everyone else. ↗

— Javier A. Robayo

#courage

Listen to Me is blood on paper, souls on the page. What courage these young writers have, what generosity. Once again, the girls of WriteGirl challenge us to step into our voices with confidence and grace, and to sing. ↗

— Sara Fain

#creative-writing #writegirl #courage