“I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.”
~ Cormac McCarthy, b. 20 July 1933
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Jean Cocteau (b. July 5th): “When I write, I disturb.”
5 Jul
“When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don’t. I have a knack for disturbing.”
~ Jean Cocteau, b. 5 July 1889
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Franz Kafka (b. July 3): “Writing is utter solitude…”
3 Jul
“Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.”
~ Franz Kafka, b. 3 July 1883
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Hermann Hesse (b. July 2nd): “When dealing with the insane, pretend to be sane.”
2 Jul
Hermann Hesse, born 2 July 1877, died 9 August 1962, was a German poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946.
10 quotes:
- People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.
- When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
- Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.
- Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.
- If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.
- The mind is international and supra-national … it ought to serve not war and annihilation, but peace and reconciliation.
- Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.
- Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.
- To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning. It is a very serious task, young man, and possibly a tragic one.
- To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.
Chris Isaak (b. June 26): “The more hurtin’ the music was, the better it made me feel.”
26 Jun
“The more hurtin’ the music was, the better it made me feel. I think of that now when I write my songs. I may not be feelin’ the blues myself, but I’m writing them for other people who have a hard life.”
~ Chris Isaak, b. 26 June 1956
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Saul Bellow (b. June 10): “A good novel is worth more than the best scientific study.”
10 Jun
Saul Bellow (born 10 June 1915, died 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times.
Quotes on writing:
- A writer is a reader moved to emulation.
- A good novel is worth more than the best scientific study.
- People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.
- A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.
- I’ve discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgement and to say in his heart of hearts, “To hell with you.”
- With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling that you’ve fallen into good hands – someone from whom you can accept the anaesthetic with confidence.
- A writer should be able to express himself easily, naturally, copiously in a form that frees his mind, his energies. Why should he hobble himself with formalities?
- You become a writer because you’re convinced that you have a grip on reality of a certain distinctive kind. It belongs to you and to others who share such a recognition.
- When I finish something, I generally put it on the shelf, and I very seldom look at it unless somebody mentions it to me, and then I open the book, and I read it, and I say, “Did I do that?”
Michael Chabon (b. May 24): “To become a successful novelist, you need talent, luck and discipline…”
24 May
“You need three things to become a successful novelist: talent, luck and discipline. Discipline is the one element of those three things that you can control, and so that is the one that you have to focus on controlling, and you just have to hope and trust in the other two.”
~ Michael Chabon, b. 24 May 1963
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Ian Rankin (b. April 28): “Most writers are just kids who refuse to grow up.”
28 Apr
Ian Rankin, born 28 April 1960, is a Scottish crime writer. His Rebus books have been translated into 22 languages and are bestsellers on several continents. He has won four Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Awards, an Edgar Award, and many others. Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, and Edinburgh.
Quotes:
- I still think most writers are just kids who refuse to grow up. We’re still playing imaginary games, with our imaginary friends.
- I don’t have many friends. It’s not because I’m a misanthrope. It’s because I’m reserved. I’m self-contained. I get all my adventures in my head when I’m writing my books.
- I think writers have to be proactive: they’ve got to use new technology and social media. Yes, it’s hard to get noticed by traditional publishers, but there’s a great deal of opportunity out there if you’ve got the right story.
- I’ve always written. At the age of six or seven, I would get sheets of A4 paper and fold them in half, cut the edges to make a little eight-page booklet, break it up into squares and put in little stick men with little speech bubbles, and I’d have a spy story, a space story and a football story.
- A lot of writers, especially crime writers, have an image that we think we’re trying to keep up with. You’ve got to be seen as dark and slightly dangerous. But I’m not like that and I’ve realised that I don’t need to put that on. People will buy the books whether they see a photo of you dressed in black or not.
On Writing:
I can’t write a novel when I’m travelling, but I can revise or edit, send emails and resolve plot problems. I’m envious of writers who can work on their books when they’re travelling, but I need my home comforts and certitudes – coffee, music, biscuits. I need to be in my office. It’s where I get to play God.
I’ll start with coffee and the papers, then maybe move on to emails. But eventually I’ll knuckle down. I have an office of sorts in my house. There will be music on the hi-fi, and I’ll sit on the sofa (if mulling), or at one desk (if writing longhand notes) or the other (if typing on to my laptop). My writing computer isn’t exactly state of the art – it can’t even access the internet – but I’ve written my last seven or eight novels on it, and it seems to work fine.
10 Rules:
- Read lots.
- Write lots.
- Learn to be self-critical.
- Learn what criticism to accept.
- Be persistent.
- Have a story worth telling.
- Don’t give up.
- Know the market.
- Get lucky.
- Stay lucky.
Mary Wollstonecraft (b. April 27): “It is vain to expect virtue from women until they are independent of men.”
27 Apr
Mary Wollstonecraft, born 27 April 1759 and died 10 September 1797, was an eighteenth-century English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. She wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children’s book. She is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Her daughter, Mary Shelley, wrote Frankenstein.
Five Quotes:
- The beginning is always today.
- Simplicity and sincerity generally go hand in hand, as both proceed from a love of truth.
- It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.
- My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.
- It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organised dust – ready to fly abroad the moment the spring snaps, or the spark goes out, which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable – and life is more than a dream.
Anita Loos (b. April 26): “I love high style in low company.”
26 Apr
Anita Loos (born 26 April 1889, died 18 August 1981) was an American screenwriter, playwright and author, best known for her blockbuster comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Nine Quotes:
- Fate keeps on happening.
- Memory is more indelible than ink.
- I’ve always loved high style in low company.
- It isn’t that gentlemen really prefer blondes, it’s just that we look dumber.
- A kiss on the hand may feel very, very good, but a diamond and sapphire bracelet lasts forever.
- On a plane you can pick up more and better people than on any other public conveyance since the stagecoach.
- The rarest of all things in American life is charm. We spend billions every year manufacturing fake charm that goes under the heading of public relations. Without it, America would be grim indeed.
- There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants – more than anything else – to become rich. As long as they don’t have the money, it’ll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they’ll understand how important other things are – and have always been.
- I can never take for granted the euphoria produced by a cup of coffee. I’m grateful every day that it isn’t banned as a drug, that I don’t have to buy it from a pusher, that its cost is minimal and there’s no need to increase the intake. I can count on its stimulation 365 mornings every year. And thanks to the magic in a cup of coffee, I’m able to plunge into a whole day’s cheerful thinking.
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