The whole excitement for writing anything is quite intense. And for a day or two, you think you've done everything extremely well. The problems start on the third day, and continues for the rest of your life.
Interpretation
Writing brings initial joy and confidence, but challenges emerge that persist throughout the process.
This quote by Tom Stoppard highlights the dual nature of writing as both an exhilarating and frustrating endeavor. Initially, the act of creation brings excitement and a sense of achievement, making the writer believe that everything is perfect. However, as time progresses, self-doubt and criticism arise, underscoring the ongoing struggles that accompany the creative process.
In practice
Using this quote in a writing workshop to encourage participants about the ups and downs of the creative process.
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself...It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.
Sometimes when you're heavy into the shooting or editing of a picture, you get to the point where you don't know if you could ever do it again.
The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.
I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me. That would be a pointless lie, a mere bit of artfulness.
A good film demands its own score, and if you are a musician, your conscience will never allow you to do something mediocre for a good film.
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