WISE WORDS: Writing

Words matter

Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind through the eye, is the great invention of the world. If you want your name to be remembered after your death, either do something worth writing about or write something worth reading.  — Abraham Lincoln

Writing down our thoughts is a uniquely human activity. It is like catching sunlight in amber. Writing is a process of creation that is largely beneficial to both the writer and the reader.

Here is a collection of my favorite observations about writing for all my fellow writers. Feel free to add your favorites in a comment so others can enjoy them. ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

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The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. — Gustav Flaubert

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, “I am going to produce a work of art.” I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. — George Orwell

You can write that sentence in a way that you would have written it last year. Or you can write it in the way of the exquisite nuance that is writing in your mind now. But that takes a lot of waiting for the right word to come. — Joseph Campbell

For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that you have come upon the right word.— Catherine Drinker Bowen

I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and look at it, until it shines. — Emily Dickinson

Writing is the painting of the voice. — Voltaire

Any writer worth (their) salt writes to please (themself). It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless. — Harper Lee

But when people say “Did you always want to be a writer?”, I have to say no! I always was a writer. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be stilled. — Sylvia Plath

There are certain moments in your life when you suddenly understand something about yourself. I loved (researching/writing). I worked all night, but I didn’t notice the passing of time. When I finished and left the building on Sunday, the sun was coming up, and that was a surprise. — Robert Caro (on his first job as a writer/reporter)

Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little. — Tom Stoppard

As a writer, you should not judge. You should understand. — Ernest Hemingway

Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I would have written a shorter speech, but I didn’t have the time. — Mark Twain

Omit needless words! — E.B. White

Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy. — Stephen King

First, you write for yourself … always, to make sense of experience and the world around you. Our stories, our books, our films are how we cope with the random trauma-inducing chaos of life as it plays. — Bruce Springsteen

We never sit anything out. We are cups, quietly and constantly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. — Ray Bradbury

My favorite writer is E.B. White. Here are some of his thoughts about writing (and about the essay which is my favorite form of writing).

Writing is an act of faith, not a grammar trick.

A writer should concern themself with whatever absorbs their fancy, stirs their heart, and unlimbers their (keyboard).

I do feel a responsibility to society because of going into print: a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. They should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.

One role of the writer today is to sound the alarm. The environment is disintegrating, the hour is late, and not much is being done. (written in 1969!)

A writer must reflect and interpret their society, their world; they must also provide inspiration and guidance and challenge.

Much writing today strikes me as deprecating, destructive, and angry. There are good reasons for anger, and I have nothing against anger. But I think some writers have lost their sense of proportion, their sense of humor, and their sense of appreciation. I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they happen to strike me.

I like the essay, have always liked it, and even as a child I was at work, attempting to inflict my young thoughts and experiences on others by putting them on paper.

The essayist is a self-liberated person, sustained by the belief that everything they think about, everything that happens to them, is of general interest. They are a person who thoroughly enjoys their work, just as people who take bird walks enjoy theirs. Each new excursion of the essayist, each new “attempt,” differs from the last and takes them into new country. This delights them.

There are as many kinds of essays as there are human attitudes or poses, as many essay flavors as there are ice cream. The essayist arises in the morning and, if they have work to do, selects their garb from an unusually extensive wardrobe: they can pull on any sort of shirt, be any sort of person, according to their mood or subject matter — philosopher, scold, jester, raconteur, confidant, pundit, devil’s advocate, enthusiast.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

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Here is a remarkable description of the miracle of the writer transmitting words/thoughts to the reader:

Every act of communication is a miracle of translation. At this moment, in this place, the shifting action potentials in my neurons cascade into certain arrangements, patterns, thoughts; they flow down my spine, branch into my arms, my fingers, until muscles twitch and thought is translated into motion; mechanical levers are pressed; electrons are rearranged; marks are made on paper.

At another time, in another place, light strikes the marks, reflects into a pair of high-precision optical instruments sculpted by nature after billions of years of random mutations; upside-down images are formed against two screens made up of millions of light-sensitive cells, which translate light into electrical pulses that go up the optic nerves, cross the chiasm, down the optic tracts, and into the visual cortex, where the pulses are reassembled into letters, punctuation marks, words, sentences, vehicles, tenors, thoughts.

The entire system seems fragile, preposterous, science fictional. Who can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe.

And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me, and you think you do understand me. Our minds managed to touch, if but briefly and imperfectly. Does the thought not make the universe seem just a bit kinder, a bit brighter, a bit warmer and more human?

We live for such miracles.

— from the Introduction to The paper menagerie and other stories by Ken Liu.

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I came across a wonderful compilation of observations about writers and writing from >100 practitioners of the art on the remarkable publication The Marginalian (which is so worth your time to explore great writing and art by the voracious and discerning reader Maria Popova). You can access all that writing wisdom here.

Enjoy! 🖌️🖍️✒️✏️

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