Literary Bits for October 4

Thoughts about creativity from artists and writers born on October 4:

 

from Western artist and sculptor Frederic Remington (A Dash for the Timber, Aiding a Comrade, The Fall of the Cowboy, The Bronco Buster, The Scout, Fight for the Waterhole) (1861-1909):

Art is a she-devil of a mistress, and if at times in earlier days she would not even stoop to my way of thinking, I have persevered and will so continue.

 

from children's book author and illustrator Robert Lawson (They Were Strong and Good, Rabbit Hill, The Great Wheel) (1892-1957):

I have never, as far as I can remember, given one moment's thought as to whether any drawing that I was doing was for adults or children. I have never changed one conception or line or detail to suit the supposed age of the reader. And I have never, in what writing I have done, changed one word or phrase of text because I felt it might be over the heads of children. I have never, I hope, Insulted the intelligence of any child. And with God and my publishers willing, I promise them that I never will.

 

from novelist Jackie Collins (The World is Full of Married Men, The Stud, Sinners, The Bitch, Hollywood series, Santangelo series) (1937-2015):

The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.

If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!

 

from novelist Anne Rice (The Vampire Chronicles) (1941-   ):

To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself.

You do have a story inside you; it lies articulate and waiting to be written—behind your silence and your suffering.

And books, they offer one hope—that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.

The world doesn't need any more mediocrity or hedged bets.

 

from humorist Roy Blount Jr. (Sports Illustrated, About Three Bricks Shy of a Load) (1941-   ):

Studying literature at Harvard is like learning about women at the Mayo clinic.

An author is a person who can never take innocent pleasure in visiting a bookstore again.

A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic.

English is an outrageous tangle of those derivations and other multifarious linguistic influences, from Yiddish to Shoshone, which has grown up around a gnarly core of chewy, clangorous yawps derived from ancestors who painted themselves blue to frighten their enemies.

I think a writer is not an ideal husband... Writers tend to get off into their own heads and not notice the people that they're living with, or they get irritable with the people that they're living with when the people insist on being noticed.

Anyone who undertakes the literary grind had better like playing around with words.

 

from Oscar-winning screenwriter Geoffrey S. Fletcher (Precious) (1970-   ):

I often think about the many remarkable things that my personal computer can do which I never ask it to do. I probably use a small fraction of its capabilities. I often wonder if the same dynamic occurs with our capacity for creativity.

It may take hundreds of pages before you begin to get a handle on the craft of writing, and your first scripts may not work. The next five to twenty may not either. However, the ones that do work owe everything to the ones that didn't.

From stoplights to skyscrapers, turn anywhere in civilization and you will see imagination at work. It's in our inventions, advances and remedies and how a single parent masterminds each day. Imagination is boundless, surrounds us and resides in us all.

 

from poet Rupi Kaur (Milk and Honey, The Sun and Her Flowers, Home Body) (1992-   ):

i am a museum full of art/but you had your eyes shut.

why is it/that when the story ends/we begin to feel all of it.

my heart woke me crying last night/how can i help i begged/my heart said/write the book.

The thing about writing is I can't tell if it's healing or destroying.