A poem should not mean but be.
Archibald MacleishRead
A real writer learns from earlier writers the way a boy learns from an apple orchard -- by stealing what he has a taste for, and can carry off
Interpretation
What this quote means
A true writer develops their craft by learning from others and drawing inspiration from existing works.
This quote highlights the idea that great writers are shaped by their predecessors. Just like a boy who picks apples from an orchard, a writer selects ideas, styles, and techniques from those who came before them, blending and transforming these influences into their own unique voice. This process of learning and 'stealing' is fundamental to creative expression and literary growth.
Themes
WritingLearningCreativityInspirationInfluence
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, to emphasize the importance of literary influences while discussing your story.
More from Archibald Macleish
All quotes βTo see the earth as we now see it, small and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the unending night ~ brothers who see now they are truly brothers.
Archibald MacleishRead
Journalism is concerned with events, poetry with feelings. Journalism is concerned with the look of the world, poetry with the feel of the world.
Archibald MacleishRead
How shall freedom be defended? By arms when it is attacked by arms, by truth when it is attacked by lies, by faith when it is attacked by authoritarian dogma. Always, in the final act, by determination and faith.
Archibald MacleishRead
Races didn't bother the Americans. They were something a lot better than any race. They were a People. They were the first self-constituted, self-declared, self-created People in the history of the world.
Archibald MacleishRead
The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life - to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity.
Archibald MacleishRead
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