Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. ... I have 10 or so, and thats a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.
Interpretation
Every writer has a unique set of creative voices or personas that they draw from. With experience, they learn to use these voices more effectively in their writing.
Gore Vidal's quote suggests that each writer possesses an internal cast of characters, experiences, and perspectives that inform their work. He implies that like a director of a theater, a writer must skillfully choose which of their 'players' to employ for different narratives, and as they mature in their craft, this selection process becomes more refined, allowing for richer storytelling.
In practice
In a writing workshop, a speaker might share this quote to encourage aspiring authors to embrace their unique voices.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
We've got people looking at our seamy side and our sad side a lot of the time because that's easier. It's much more difficult to make a film about happiness with lots of jokes in it.
What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is.
Poetry is prose bewitched, a music made of visual thoughts, the sound of an idea.
No sensible author wants anything but praise.
A great artist is a great man in a great child.
Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.
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