Most writers tend to get worse rather than better. I'm determined to be one that gets better.
Edmund WhiteRead
There is a whole industry in America of people who want to write, and those who teach it. Even if the students don't end up writing, what's good about them taking the courses is, they become great readers, learning to appreciate the writing.
Interpretation
Writing courses enhance reading skills, fostering appreciation for literature.
Edmund White emphasizes the value of writing courses not just for aspiring writers but also for students who may not pursue writing as a career. Even if they do not write professionally, the experience of studying writing cultivates their skills as readers, allowing them to develop a deeper appreciation for literary works and the craft of writing itself.
In practice
During a seminar on the importance of literary education, this quote could underscore the broader benefits of writing courses.
Most writers tend to get worse rather than better. I'm determined to be one that gets better.
I've always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.
In a memoir, your main contract with the reader is to tell the truth, no matter how bizarre.
If bigots oppose gay marriage so vehemently, it must be because marriage is a defining institution for them; gays will never be fully accepted until they can marry and adopt, like anyone else.
When we are young... we often experience things in the present with a nostalgia-in-advance, but we seldom guess what we will truly prize years from now.
I was never an assimilationist. I always thought gays had some special mission.
I believe in women. I desire . . . to do those things that would advance women in moral and spiritual, as well as educational work.
A book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us.
Excellent teachers showered on to us like meteors: Biology teachers holding up human brains, English teachers inspiring us with a personal ideological fierceness about Tolstoy and Plato, Art teachers leading us through the slums of Boston, then back to the easel to hurl public school gouache with social awareness and fury.
Most areas of intellectual life have discovered the virtues of speculation, and have embraced them wildly. In academia, speculation is usually dignified as theory.
From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.
You can never learn anything that you did not already know
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