At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.
Richard RussoRead
You just kind of have faith. If that sounds kind of mystical, it's because I really don't know how it works, but I trust that it does. I try to write the way I read, in order to find out what happens next.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of faith in the creative process and trusting the journey of writing.
Richard Russo discusses the often mysterious nature of creativity and the act of writing. He highlights that by having faith—despite uncertainty—creators can allow their writing to unfold organically, much like how readers engage with a narrative to discover what happens next. This perspective underscores the idea that embracing the unknown can lead to unexpected and meaningful outcomes.
Themes
FaithCreativityWritingTrustJourney
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational workshop for writers, this quote can inspire participants to trust their creative instincts.
More from Richard Russo
All quotes →I think that if people are instructed about anything, it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost, and a price to be paid.
Richard RussoRead
I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.
Richard RussoRead
My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore except in my memory and my imagination.
Richard RussoRead
I told him the truth, that I loved him and didn't regret anything about our lives together. But do we ever 'tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God' as my father used to say, to those we love? Or even to ourselves? Don't even the best and most fortunate of lives hint at other possibilities, at a different kind of sweetness and, yes, bitterness too? Isn't this why we can't help feeling cheated, even when we know we haven't been?
Richard RussoRead
He'd discovered that his memories of that summer were like bad movie montages - young lovers tossing a Frisbee in the park, sharing a melting ice-cream cone, bicycling along the river, laughing, talking, kissing, a sappy score drowning out the dialogue because the screenwriter had no idea what these two people might say to each other.
Richard RussoRead
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