No illusion is more crucial than the illusion that great success and huge money buy you immunity from the common ills of mankind, such as cars that won't start.
Larry McmurtryRead
You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analagous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and verb and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of simplicity in writing, particularly in the opening sentence.
Larry McMurtry likens the opening sentence of a text to a good country breakfast, suggesting that it should be straightforward yet fulfilling. He advocates for simplicity in writing, encouraging writers to avoid overly complicated language or excessive philosophical musings in favor of clarity and nourishment for the reader’s imagination.
In practice
A writing workshop discussing the art of crafting effective opening sentences.
No illusion is more crucial than the illusion that great success and huge money buy you immunity from the common ills of mankind, such as cars that won't start.
-she remembered them kindly, for there was a sweetness in boys that didn't last long, once they became men.
A child needs freedom within limits.
Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.
I felt grateful to Ataturk that my parents were so well educated, that they weren't held back by superstition or religion, that they were true scientists who taught me how to read when I was three and never doubted that I could become a writer.
Education is all a matter of building bridges.
Everyone [in higher education] was what I call drillers of deeper wells. These academics sit at the bottom of a deep well and they look up and see a sliver of the sky. They know everything about that little sliver of sky and nothing else. I scan all my horizons.
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