#writing

I like to be aware of a book as a piece of writing, and aware of its structure as a product of mind, and yet I want to be able to see the represented world through it. I admire artists who succeed in dividing my attention more or less evenly between the world of their books and the art of their books . . . so that a reader may study the work with pleasure as well as the world that it describes. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#writing #art

...the best way to know the Truth or Beauty is to try to express it. And what is the purpose of existence Here or Yonder but to discover truth and beauty and express it, i.e., share it with others? ↗

— Brenda Ueland

#truth #writing #art

The universe will express itself as long as somebody will be able to say, "I read, therefore it writes. ↗

— Italo Calvino

#reading #writing #art

The material's out there, a calm lake waiting for us to dive in. ↗

— Beverly Lowry

#writing #art

Art and commerce are not irreconciliable, they are inextricably intertwined. ↗

— Nicholas Meyer

#writing #art

An unthinkable thought is not one that hasn't occurred to somebody, nor is it a thought that somebody considers to be wrong. An unthinkable thought threatens a person's entire existence and is therefore subversive and consequently can be thought of and has been thought of, but has been pushed out of the mind's currency and subsumed into its margins where it festers. Dark nights of the soul are lit by inconceivable ideas. Any story may draw its source from the power of an unthinkable thought. ↗

— Charles Baxter

#art

How to preside over your own internal disorder? Finding the "I" that can represent the pack of you is the first challenge of the memoirist. ↗

— Tracy Kidder

#writing #writing-process #art

Writing is turning one's worst moments into money. ↗

— J. P. Donleavy

#moments #money #turning #worst #writing

...what is art to the dilettante but the initiation of the sacred few to the exclusion of the profane crowd?... ↗

— John Geddes

#elitism #exclusivism #writing #art

I wish to try my hand at a novel," he said. "Just scribbling, I assure you, but it strikes me as such a noble art, requiring none of the monetary resources of opera or drama, nor the erudition of poetry. Perchance a publisher could be found. I'd be satisfied by the printing of even a score of copies, if only to hold the bound work in my hands. It gives a unique satisfaction, I assume, the writing of a novel. ↗

— Kyle Muntz

#art