The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
Don DelilloRead
For me, writing is a concentrated form of thinking.
Interpretation
Writing is an intense process that requires deep thought and reflection.
In this quote, Don DeLillo expresses the idea that writing is not just a method of communication but a profound intellectual activity. Through the act of writing, one is forced to confront their thoughts and organize them meticulously, leading to clarity and understanding of complex ideas.
In practice
During a writing workshop, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of introspection in the writing process.
The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.
American writers ought to stand and live in the margins, and be more dangerous.
I used to think it was possible for an artist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory.
[I]n the American soul there is a lonely individual standing in a vast landscape. β¨He is either on a horse or driving a car, depending, and either way heβs carrying a gun. β¨This is one of the essential images in American mythology.
There's a curious knot that binds novelists and terrorists...Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated.
I always believed you could learn something from nearly everybody you meet, if you're open to it.
Libraries offer, for free, the wisdom of the ages--and sages--and, simply put, there's something for everyone inside.
My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church.
Literature - novels, plays, and poems - can have an uncanny dual life, where they simultaneously represent something eternal and something historical, and this is often how they are taught in school.
That's the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.
Your task, O preacher, is to make sure that you are faithful to the text, that you are faithful to the proclamation of that gospel, that you are faithful to set forth the whole counsel of God, and then step back and let it happen.
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