I would write my editorials using a manual typewriter in pitch-black darkness... I would produce the whole thing without having seen the text.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the idea of creating without external influences, emphasizing pure creativity and self-trust.
Charles Krauthammer’s quote highlights the essence of creativity and the process of writing in absolute anonymity. By using a manual typewriter in pitch-black darkness, he symbolizes the idea of relying solely on one's inner voice and intuition to express thoughts and ideas, rather than being distracted by external factors or the constraints of conventional practices.
In practice
During a writing workshop, I used this quote to inspire fellow writers to trust their instincts.
If you get a call to go to a certain place in the middle of the night to pick up stolen goods, and it turns out the stolen goods don't show up but the cops show up, I think you're going to have a very weak story saying, 'Well, I got swindled here.'
I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking.
The joy of losing consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no disappointment.
You're betraying your whole life if you don't say what you think - and you don't say it honestly and bluntly.
History has blessed us with all the freedom and advantages of multiculturalism. But it has also blessed us, because of the accident of our origins, with the linguistic unity that brings a critically needed cohesion to a nation as diverse, multiracial and multiethnic as America. Why gratuitously throw away that priceless asset? How mindless to call the desire to retain it 'racist.
When a party is in opposition, it opposes. That's its job. But when it comes to power, it must govern. Easy rhetoric is over, the press of reality becomes irresistible. By necessity, it adopts some of the policies it had once denounced. And a new national consensus is born.
Because, as we all know, it’s easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking. And it’s also easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things that we’re not so sure about.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.
Each undervalues that part of the materials of thought with which he is not familiar.
Men who are orthodox when they are young are in danger of being middle-aged all their lives.
Knowledge is potential power. It transforms itself into actual power the moment you decisively act on it.
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