There were a lot of things I loved about working in a library, but mostly I miss the library patrons. I love books, but books are everywhere. Library patrons are as various and oddball and democratic as library books.
Elizabeth MccrackenRead
The thing that most interests me about writing - there are lots of things, but the thing I can't do without - is the hit of happiness a lovely sentence delivers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing is driven by the joy that comes from creating beautiful sentences.
In this quote, Elizabeth McCracken expresses her deep fascination with writing, emphasizing that the most essential aspect for her is the happiness that arises from crafting elegant sentences. This joy serves as a fundamental motivation for her creative process, highlighting the connection between artistry and emotional fulfillment.
Themes
WritingHappinessBeautySentenceCreative
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, to inspire students about the joy of writing, I would share McCracken's quote.
More from Elizabeth Mccracken
All quotes →Unrequited love–plain desperate aboveboard boy-chasing–turned you into a salesperson, and what you were selling was something he didn't want, couldn't use, would never miss. Unrequited love was deciding to be useless, and I could never abide uselessness.
Elizabeth MccrackenRead
All I can say is, it's a sort of kinship, as though there is a family tree of grief. On this branch, the lost children, on this the suicided parents, here the beloved mentally ill siblings. When something terrible happens, you discover all of the sudden that you have a new set of relatives, people with whom you can speak in the shorthand of cousins.
Elizabeth MccrackenRead
Similar quotes
And I was afraid. She frightens me because she can knock me down with a word. Because she does not know that writing is walking on a dizzying silence setting one word after the other on emptiness. Writing is miraculous and terrifying like the flight of a bird who has no wings but flings itself out and only gets wings by flying.
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Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.
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