Writing

"Don't you know no one can escapethe power of creatures reaching outwith breath alone?"

"Anyone who has no need of anybody but himself is either a beast or a God."Aristotle"

"When you write about what you dream, you become a writer. When you dream about what you write, you become haunted by a curse."

"If you only write when you’re inspired you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your word count today and those words aren’t going to wait for you whether you’re inspired or not. You have to write when you’re not inspired. And you have to write the scenes that don’t inspire you. And the weird thing is that six months later, a year later, you’ll look back at them and you can’t remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you just wrote because they had to be written next. The process of writing can be magical. …Mostly it’s a process of putting one word after another."

"Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage."

"Writing, then, was a substitute for myself: if you don't love me, love my writing & love me for my writing. It is also much more: a way of ordering and reordering the chaos of experience."

"No one wants to read poetry. You have to make it impossible for them to put the poem down--impossible for them to stop reading it, word after word. You have to keep them from closing the book."

"Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces."

"You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest."

"Writing is not a matter of time, but a matter or of space. If you don't keep space in your head for writing, you won't write even if you have the time."

". . . All artists’ work is autobiographical. Any writer’s work is a map of their psyche. You can really see what their concerns are, what their obsessions are, and what interests them."

"... so this is for us. This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and loveand this is for doing it even if no one will ever knowbecause the beauty is in the act of doing it. Not what it can lead to. This is for the times I lose myself while writing, singing, playingand no one is around and they will never knowbut I will forever rememberand that shines brighter than any praise or fame or glory I will ever have,and this is for you who write or play or read or singby yourself with the light off and door closedwhen the world is asleep and the stars are alignedand maybe no one will ever hear itor read your wordsor know your thoughtsbut it doesn’t make it less glorious. It makes it ethereal. Mysterious. Infinite. For it belongs to you and whatever God or spirit you believe inand only you can decide how much it meantand meansand will forever meanand other people will experience it toothrough you. Through your spirit. Through the way you talk. Through the way you walk and love and laugh and careand I never meant to write this longbut what I want to say is:Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourselfand let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story. Let your very identity be your book. Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody. So go create. Take photographs in the wood, run alone in the rain and sing your heart out high up on a mountainwhere no one will ever hearand your very existence will be the most hypnotising scar. Make your life be your artand you will never be forgotten."

"and sometimes I sitdown at my typewriterand I thinknot of someonecause there isn't anyoneto thinkabout and i wonderis it worth it"

"I don't think all writers are sad, she said. I think it's the other way around—all sad people write."

"They say that I am a poet I wonder what they would say if they saw me from the inside I bottleemotions and place them into the sea for others to unbottle ondistant shores I am unsure as to whether they ever reach and forthat matter as to whether I ever get my point acrossor my love"

"And the most beautiful words ever spoken, I have not yet said to you."

"Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?"

"I want to see thirst In the syllables,Tough fire In the sound;Feel through the dark For the scream."

"A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times."

"After the first glass of vodkayou can accept just about anythingof life even your own mysteriousnessyou think it is nice that a boxof matches is purple and brown and is called La Petite and comes from Swedenfor they are words that you know and that is all you know words not their feelings or what they mean and you write because you know them not because you understand them because you don't you are stupid and lazy and will never be great but you do what you know because what else is there?"