writing (general)
‘Gothic’ is, essentially, the opposite of ‘Classical’. Classical is ordered, harmonious, and rectilinear. Gothic is chaotic, discordant, and curvilinear.
When I watch a Miyazaki film I can’t help but think about his attunement to the world, the presence it requires to transmute the real world into a fantastical one. That’s the interesting contradiction of writers and artists, I suppose: alienation is a necessity, but so is participation. The point of getting better is to be more in the world.
The poet proves that language is inadequate by throwing herself at the fence of language and being bound by it.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
I don’t really care much for hearing “both sides” or “opposing points of view,” so much as I care about understanding the literary tools deployed to advance those views—the discipline of voice, the use of verbs, the length and brevity of sentences, and the curiosity of mind behind those sentences.
Ta-Nehisi Coates • The Message
The cradle of material change is in our imagination and ideas.
Ta-Nehisi Coates • The Message
When I think of my earliest days as a writer, what I recall is a kind of longing—I felt everything I wished to say, even if I didn’t exactly know it. There was so much I did not understand, and what I did understand I could never say with all the layers and color that would truly convey that understanding to my reader.