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
-
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.
-
All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
-
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.
-
Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.
-
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.
-
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.
-
My understanding of films was just as much as any young girl who watches Bollywood films. I had no idea about the whole process of filmmaking, about dialogue writing, scripts, screenplay etc. I had probably gone to two or three film shoots in my childhood.
-
I like writing flawed women, and being one, it's something I feel I can write with some veracity and authority.
-
One of the pleasantest things about book writing is that sometimes it brings one in touch with old friends.
-
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.
-
I worked initially in very low-budget independent films that I often wrote. My early work was all written by myself, and then I adapted 'Tsotsi,' so I was used to the writing process being, in a way, integral to my directing. I felt it really prepared me.
-
When you're writing, you are robbed of your delivery.
-
'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.
-
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.
-
Writing is agony. I hate it.
-
It's kind of a catch-22 now because since the 'Da Vinci Code,' I have access to places and people that I didn't have access to before, so that's a lot of fun for somebody like me, but I'm always trying to keep a secret. I don't want people to know what I'm writing about.
-
Instead of writing songs for girls, I tend to write albums, which I guess is a bit weird.
-
The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.
-
One of the nice things about writing is you can take essentially painful things in your life and turn them into something that might be useful, or at least entertaining, to somebody else.
-
So the programs all start to all look the same. I watched one free skating competition, and I thought I was watching a short program. Everyone was doing exactly the same elements.
-
Usually, I don't feel comfortable with a character until I've played him before an audience for several performances. It is not until after three months of performing that I learn to discover what I call 'all the nooks and crannies' of the person.
-
We have so many rich people in Switzerland. They should take more responsibility for the general public. There is almost no tradition of philanthropy here anymore, unlike in the U.S.
-
I want to be a representative and be a role model for the Asian American community.
-
If you don't set your writing - teaching - at a level that makes them stretch, they are never going to develop their intellectual muscle.
