M. H. Abrams Quotes
If you don't set your writing - teaching - at a level that makes them stretch, they are never going to develop their intellectual muscle.
Quotes to Explore
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The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot and George Washington – wasn't nothing non-violent about old Pat or George Washington.
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All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
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I like the performing. And interviews, even. And the stuff that's not sitting in a room by yourself with empty paper. But I never loved writing, to tell you the truth.
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Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.
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I can sit and analyze everything and beat myself up and say you don't quite sing as good as you used to, you're writing better songs maybe than you used to, but to me it's just the journey.
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Then about 1951 I began writing again, painfully, a novel I called in the beginning A Life Sentence on Earth, but which developed into The Tree of Man.
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I like writing flawed women, and being one, it's something I feel I can write with some veracity and authority.
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One of the pleasantest things about book writing is that sometimes it brings one in touch with old friends.
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Black people were very angry with me for writing the book. A lot of people didn't believe me, or didn't want to believe me, and that used to really bother me. It was a very painful and difficult time.
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When you're writing, you are robbed of your delivery.
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'Seize the Story' takes readers all the way through the process of writing fiction, from beginning to end. Every element, from dialogue to setting, plotting to character creation, is laid out and illustrated with examples. But the tone of the book is not that of a dry writing manual - it's definitely written for teenagers.
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I am truly at my happiest not when I am writing an aria for an actor or making a grand political or social point. I am at my happiest when I've figured out a fun way for somebody to slip on a banana peel.
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Writing is agony. I hate it.
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Instead of writing songs for girls, I tend to write albums, which I guess is a bit weird.
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I had left teaching, which I enjoyed, because I realized I couldn't get tenure at a research university.
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I love writing songs. I love doing my radio show and talking to the fans and listening to what they have to say, but there's a certain responsibility that comes along with being given the gift of music. I take that seriously, but at the same time I try to use it to do something that makes a difference in a positive way.
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Whatever's going on with me at the time of writing is going to find its way into the piece. If that doesn't happen, then what the hell am I doing? So if I'm writing 'Inglourious Basterds,' and I'm in love with a girl and we break up, that's going to find its way into the piece.
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Arendt did have a certain snobbishness, though in some of her writing she expressed more democratic attitudes.
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There will be this mix of people like me who write for major national newspapers and amateur critics, practitioner critics, whose primary way of distributing what they talk about is through blogs and on the web. The line between professional and amateur criticism will become increasingly blurred. The problem here is that if you want to do this for a living, you have to be able to earn a living doing it.
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I've got a Grammy and Emmy, I'd like to have a Tony.
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There is one question that I don't think Gary Condit can answer, and that I think is why we all aimed at Gary Condit, besides the fact that he has a relationship.
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I never skimp on TV. I watch an embarrassing amount of TV shows. I don't even know how I do it.
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If you don't set your writing - teaching - at a level that makes them stretch, they are never going to develop their intellectual muscle.
