We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Which leads me to my second point: writers do not write what they want, they write what they can.
Interpretation
Writers must embrace their own unique perspectives and limitations rather than attempting to conform to a universal standard.
This quote by Zadie Smith emphasizes the importance of authenticity in writing. It suggests that writers are not merely expressing whatever they wish to express; instead, they are influenced by their individual experiences, capabilities, and identities. This highlights the idea that true creativity comes from personal authenticity and recognizing one's own voice within the constraints of one's abilities.
In practice
In a writing workshop, to encourage students to embrace their unique voices.
Because immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition - it's something to do with that experience of moving from West to East or East to West or from island to island. Even when you arrive, you're still going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There's no proper term for it - original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better.
You know, you don't expect everyone to be as educated as everyone else or have the same achievements, but you expect at least to be offered at least some of the opportunities, and libraries are the most simple and the most open way to give people access to books.
He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.
I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka as roughage.
I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them.
I can't add. I don't understand basic science. Or anything else. But I can read anything. I've always been able to, and I've always liked to. Even if I didn't understand it, I liked to.
Even after I became involved in theater and involved in TV and film, I had this sort of idea that Hollywood was off limits. There was something about L.A., the mystique of it and fear of it.
Because anybody can write, but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented a new form of writing and her imitators are just "talents."
In the early days, Porter Wagoner would not exactly scold me, but he's say, 'You're writing too many damn verses. You're makin' these songs too damn long.' And I'd say, 'Yeah, but I'm tellin' a story. I have a story to tell.' And he'd say, 'Well, you're not going to get it on the radio.' If I start writing a song, I'm writing it for a reason. People would say that I had to have two verses, and a chorus, and a bridge. I tried to learn that formula.
I'm very shy, and I shy away from people. But the moment I hit the stage, it's a different feeling I get nerve from somewhere; maybe it's because it's something I love to do.
Who knows if the moon's / a balloon, coming out of a keen city / in the sky - filled with pretty people?
The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.
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