Stephen Greenblatt (Stephen Jay Greenblatt) Quotes

I think the writing of literature should give pleasure. What else should it be about? It is not nuclear physics. It actually has to give pleasure or it is worth nothing.

Stephen Greenblatt

• Writing
• Pleasure
• Worth

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Quotes to Explore

• Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.

  

  Carlos Fuentes
  • Writing
  • Done
  • Nothing

• Writing books is a nice retreat. There's nothing quite like diving into a book for a few hours. That is a big time vacation.

  

  Padgett Powell
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Book

• There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it.

  

  Ovid
  • Pleasure
  • Anxiety
  • Pure

• 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.

  

  Patrick White
  • Life
  • Writing
  • Man

• I love writing songs.

  

  Sade Adu
  • Writing
  • Love
  • Songs

• Personal relationships are usually my biggest inspirations for writing my songs. The best way for me to write a song is to visualise the story in my head, and I start humming a melody, and before you know it, a song is born.

  

  Nadia Ali
  • Writing
  • Song
  • Best

• I will just generalise it that anything that I find too disgusting is not worth an answer.

  

  Yami Gautam
  • Find
  • Answer
  • Worth

• I was always more interested in my books and my writing than going out. It's OK to say I'm a nerd. That's me.

  

  Samantha Shannon
  • Writing
  • Me
  • Books

• After the children grew up, I began to focus on my writing. My first books were part of a trilogy... The 'Wind Dance' trilogy.

  

  Iris Johansen
  • Up
  • Writing
  • Children

• Nobody's going to write a book about me, because nobody's going to find anything worth writing a book about.

  

  Jack Kent Cooke
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Me

• I'm a pretty easygoing person, and it bleeds into the music. Even if I'm writing the most personal song, it's not going to come out totally serious; there's always a little tongue in the cheek.

  

  Mac DeMarco
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Pretty

• Writing blurbs for books means you have to read the book, and it cuts into the business of bookselling. So every time I get a blurb from a bookseller, I try to write a thank you note.

  

  Gabrielle Zevin
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Business

• When I graduated high school, I bought a guitar and, at first, didn't really think I'd get into the songwriting thing as much as I did. But after learning a few songs of other people's to play on the guitar, I got bored with that and just started writing songs on my own, and that's kinda how it came about.

  

  Sam Hunt
  • People
  • Writing
  • School

• One thing I've had to realize in my career is that I can't do it all. Sometimes we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make sure we're writing the next hit. There are other people out there, and that's what they do every day, and they have strengths that I don't have.

  

  Randy Houser
  • People
  • Writing
  • Career

• All art is propaganda, and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda.

  

  W. E. B. Du Bois
  • Writing
  • Love
  • Art

• I don't feel comfortable doing interviews. My profession is music, and writing songs. That's what I do. I like to do it, but I hate to talk about it.

  

  Van Morrison
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Hate

• But when I was a little kid, I was always writing stories and illustrating little books that I would create.

  

  Patricia Cornwell
  • Writing
  • Books
  • Create

• Writing is like carrying a fetus.

  

  Edna O'Brien
  • Writing
  • Like
  • Carrying

• I haven't always been a writer and I suppose I tiptoed around the idea of writing full time, because it's so isolating.

  

  Marisha Pessl
  • Time
  • Writing

• No doubt I shall go on writing, stumbling across tundras of unmeaning, planting words like bloody flags in my wake. Loose ends, things unrelated, shifts, nightmare journeys, cities arrived at and left, meetings, desertions, betrayals, all manner of unions, adulteries, triumphs, defeats…these are the facts.

  

  Alexander Trocchi
  • Writing
  • Facts

• There was never a single murder in my neighbourhood; there was barely a robbery. It was so suburban, it was almost disappointing.

  

  Marlon James
  • Single

• I want to put expectations on our team that are high. That's kind of the way I've always been, and I want to put those expectations on our team as well.

  

  Blake Griffin
  • High
  • Team

• Self-tracking using a wearable device can be fascinating.

  

  Kate Crawford

• I think the writing of literature should give pleasure. What else should it be about? It is not nuclear physics. It actually has to give pleasure or it is worth nothing.

  

  Stephen Greenblatt
  • Writing
  • Pleasure
  • Worth