#writing

The dream vocabulary shaves meanings finer and closer than do the world's daytime dictionaries. ↗

— Mark Twain

#dreams

It might be said of Miss [Djuna] Barnes,” [T.S. Eliot] wrote, “who is incontestably one of the most original writers of our time, that never has so much genius been combined with so little talent. ↗

— Ross Wetzsteon

#genius #talent #tseliot #writing #dreams

The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement." [Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech] ↗

— John Steinbeck

#exposure #failures #faults #improvement #writers

Father is a school manqué ... He always wanted to write books. But he became rich instead, so is not allowed. ↗

— Iain Pears

#books #wealth #wishes #writing #dreams

It turns out that the distance from head to hand, from wafting butterfly to entomological specimen, is achieved through regular, disciplined practice. What begins as something like a dream will in fact stay a dream forever unless you have the tools and the discipline to bring it out. ↗

— Ann Patchett

#writing #dreams

A letter is always better than a phone call. People write things in letters they would never say in person. They permit themselves to write down feelings and observations using emotional syntax far more intimate and powerful than speech will allow. ↗

— Alice Steinbach

#writing #education

I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an' stuff like that, too; not just word writin'. My ol' man'll be sore when he sees me whip out a bird in one stroke. Pa's gonna be mad when he sees me do that. He don't like no fancy stuff like that. He don't even like word writin'. Kinda scare 'im, I guess. Ever' time Pa seen writin', somebody took somepin away from 'im. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#depression #education #society #writing #education

Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic. ↗

— William Hazlitt

#poetry #tragedy #writing #equality

Nothing helped until the day she took a tablet and pencil into the basement and moved the event out of her and onto paper, where it was reshaped into a kind of simple equation: loss equaled the need to love again, more. ↗

— Elizabeth Berg

#love #writing #equality

With six weeks' worth of recuperation time, you'll also be able to see any glaring holes in the plot or character development. And listen--if you spot a few of these big holes, you are forbidden to feel depressed about them or to beat up on yourself. Screw-ups happen to the best of us. ↗

— Stephen King

#inspirational #writing #inspirational