It's a big enough umbrella, but it's always me that ends up getting wet.
StingRead
If you make your living writing, and you can't write anything, it's over. It's very frightening.
Interpretation
The pressure of the writing profession can be overwhelming, especially when facing writer's block.
This quote by Sting highlights the intense fear and anxiety that can accompany a career in writing, particularly during periods when one struggles to produce new work. It reflects the idea that for writers, their ability to create is deeply tied to their identity and livelihood, making the inability to write a daunting experience that threatens their profession.
In practice
During a writing workshop, one might use this quote to emphasize the emotional struggles writers face.
It's a big enough umbrella, but it's always me that ends up getting wet.
Success always necessitates a degree of ruthlessness. Given the choice of friendship or success, I'd probably choose success.
It's never easy to write a song. It's the most difficult thing I do.
I see music as one language. If one musical form eats its own tail, it dies. So it needs to be a mongrel, it needs to be hybridised.
There's no religion but sex and music.
I don't need to manufacture trauma in my life to be creative. I have a big enough reservoir of sadness or emotional trauma to last me.
I got over the loss of his desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cortés.
An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.
For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.
For years, I sort of would try to write a story that somehow fit the title. And I don't think it happened for maybe another four years that I actually thought of a story, the plot of a story that corresponded to that phrase.
Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet.
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
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