Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. ¶ |
Poetry
,
Writing
I am always on the lookout for sentences that take your breath away, for sentences that make you say, "Isn't that something?" or "What a sentence!" ¶ |
Journalism
,
Writing
I spend my days tasting the insides of words, breathing life into sentences that swim away under their own power, stringing together cables of poetry to hold up a narrative arc. ¶ |
Writing
Writing, or any other discipline of art, involves participation in suffering, in the ills and the occasional stabbing joys that come from being part of the human drama. ¶ |
Art
,
Writing
To work on a book is for me very much the same thing as to pray. Both involve discipline. ¶ |
Writing
I hope I never condescend to the audience. I think you should write as if people who are smarter than you are will read it, because they are out there. ¶ |
Writing
To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct. ¶ |
Writing
When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them -- then the rest will be valuable. ¶ |
Writing