I'm a frotteur, someone who likes to rub words in his hand, to turn them around and feel them, to wonder if that really is the best word possible.
James SalterRead
I think you can be taught to write. You can't be taught to be a good writer. For that, you have to bring something to it, yourself, something that can't be given to you.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing skills can be learned, but true talent and creativity come from within.
This quote highlights the distinction between technical skills and inherent creativity in writing. While one can develop the mechanics of writing through education and practice, the depth and quality of writing often require a personal touch, insights, and experiences that cannot be taught or replicated by others. It emphasizes the value of individual perspective and originality in the craft of writing.
Themes
WritingCreativityTalentEducationOriginality
In practice
Example use cases
In a workshop on writing, this quote can inspire aspiring authors to find their unique voice.
More from James Salter
All quotes →The summer has ended. The garden withers. The mornings become chill. I am thirty, I am thirty-four -the years turn dry as leaves.
James SalterRead
Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am referring to certain landscapes, persons, beasts, books, rooms, meteorological conditions, fruits.
James SalterRead
One is seduced and battered in turn. The result is presumably wisdom. Wisdom! We are clinging to life like lizards. Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am referring to certain landscapes, persons, beasts, books, rooms, meteorological conditions, fruits. In fact, I insist on it. A letter is like a poem, it leaps into life and shows very clearly the marks, perhaps I should say thumbprints, of an unwilling or unready composer.
James SalterRead
If you read a book about school - someone else's book - you always translate it into your own school experiences. It's describing the student: he's bewildered and lost in a large crowd in a university classroom. You'll visualize that from your own experiences. So, everything you know is what you're really writing.
James SalterRead
I sometimes say that I don't make anything up - obviously that's not true. But I am uninterested in writers who say that everything comes out of the imagination. I would rather be in a room with someone who is telling the story of his life, which may be exaggerated and even have lies in it, but I want to hear the true story, essentially.
James SalterRead
Similar quotes
You may have an older audience in front of you holding the Bible and a younger audience holding an iPhone. You don't want to lose either audience.
Tony EvansRead
In times of change, learners inherit the earth
Erich FrommRead
It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.
Richard DawkinsRead
My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can make it clear and interesting and compelling to me, then I hope maybe it will be for the reader.
David McculloughRead
In a high tech world the cure for the tragic shortcomings and perilous fallacies of human intuition is education, but education in economics, evolutionary biology, probability and statistics - unfortunately most High School and College curricula have barely changed since Medieval times!
Steven PinkerRead
If you don't feel safe as a child, you can't learn.
Lady GagaRead