Was it always my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times, until any success became an accident and failure seemed the only truth?
Lillian HellmanRead
If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.
Interpretation
Young writers should focus on their own voice rather than be influenced by others' opinions on writing.
Lillian Hellman's quote emphasizes the importance of individuality in the writing process. She suggests that young writers should cultivate their unique perspectives and styles by not overly heeding the advice and discussions of established writers, as it may hinder their authentic expression and development as writers.
In practice
A writing workshop at a school might use this quote to encourage students to trust their own voices.
Was it always my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times, until any success became an accident and failure seemed the only truth?
It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.
If you believe, as the Greeks did, that man is at the mercy of the gods, then you write tragedy. The end is inevitable from the beginning. But if you believe that man can solve his own problems and is at nobody's mercy, then you will probably write melodrama.
Nobody knows what you want except you. And nobody will be as sorry as you if you don't get it. Wanting some other way to live is proof enough of deserving it. Having it is hard work, but not having it is sheer hell.
Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.
It is not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute.
Above all, those to whom the care of young minds has been entrusted should see to it that they respect both the smallest and largest animals as beings which, like people, have been summoned to the joy of life.
We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. Use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside.
I wrote the first draft of my first novel at Michigan, and then I wrote the first draft of 'Salvage the Bones' at Stanford. So I workshopped the entire thing.
There are no bad books any more than there are ugly women.
To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator.
This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Some days you don't want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don't wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run ... That's how writing is too ... One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive.
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