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.
the whole purport of literature...is the notation of the heart. Style is but the faintly contemptible vessel in which the bitter liquid is recommended to the world.
I see myself as a perennial expatriate because, frankly, I don't think I fit comfortably in any conventional form of filmmaking, and I feel at the same time, depending on the project, I fit into many different ones.
I'm fairly certain when I die that the obituary will say, 'Author of 'Angels in America' dies.' Unless I'm completely forgotten, and then it won't say anything at all.
There is a movie called “Fargo” playing right now. It is a masterpiece. Go see it. If you, under any circumstances, see “Little Indian, Big City,” I will never let you read one of my reviews again.
I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient.
I bet you never heard of a playa with no game, Told the truth to get what I want, but shot it with no shame. Take this music dead serious while others entertain. I see they makin' they paper so I guess I can't complain...or can I? I feel they disrespectin' the whole thang. Them hooks like sellin' dope to black folks, And I choke when the food they serve ain't tastin' right, My stomach can't digest it even when I bless it.
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