"There is today an extraordinary interest with the data of modern experience per se. Our absorption in our contemporary historical state is very high right now. It's not altogether unlike a similar situation in seventeenth century Holland where wealthy merchants wanted their portraits done with all their blemishes included. It is the height of egotism in a sense to think even one's blemishes are of significance. So today Americans seem to want their writers to reveal all their weaknesses their meannesses to celebrate their very confusions. And they want it in the most direct possible way - they want it served up neat as it were without the filtering and generalizing power of fiction."

Writing, Truth, Identity, Memory

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"There is today an extraordinary interest with the data of modern experience per se. Our absorption in our contemporary historical state is very high right now. It's not altogether unlike a similar situation in seventeenth century Holland where wealthy merchants wanted their portraits done with all their blemishes included. It is the height of egotism in a sense to think even one's blemishes are of significance. So today Americans seem to want their writers to reveal all their weaknesses their meannesses to celebrate their very confusions. And they want it in the most direct possible way - they want it served up neat as it were without the filtering and generalizing power of fiction."

Exlpore more Writing quotes

"You spill a lot of beans in historical fiction. Crime fiction is about spilling no beans at all. You spill the least beans you possibly can. So because I had already written historical fiction before I was really good at the spilling beans section, but the new skill I had to learn when I was writing Brighton Belle was difficult. I had to avoid the equivalent of shouting, "this character's a murderer! Look who did it!."

Sara Sheridan, Scottish Author

Writing, Mystery, Storytelling, Secrets, Skill

"Don't say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me."

C. S. Lewis, British Author

Writing, Description, Delight, Imagination

"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, American Author

Writing, Tragedy

"We write, edit, and rewrite the story of our own life employing descriptive words, metaphors, and symbols. Our lives are full of symbols including those supplied by nature and religion, which touch upon the mystical and spiritual aspects of life. Symbols inspire enduring hope by formulating idealist expectations."

Kilroy J. Oldster, American Author

Writing, Life, Religion, Nature

"I'm a fairly undisciplined writer."

Neil Gaiman, British Author

Writing, Writer

"Writers aren't exactly people, they're a bunch of people trying to be one person."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, American Author

Writing, Identity, Creativity, People

"My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

John F. Kennedy, American President

Writing, Americans, Country

"Pour your heart onto the page."

A. D. Posey, American Poet

Writing, Emotion, Expression, Creativity

"One of my rules is never explain. A writer is a lot like a magician, if you explain how the trick works then a lot of the magic turns mundane."

Laurell K. Hamilton, American Writer

Writing, Magic, Rules

"Twofold misjudgement. - The misfortune suffered by clear-minded and easily understood writers is that they are taken for shallow and thus little effort is expended on reading them: and the good fortune that attends the obscure is that the reader toils at them and ascribes to them the pleasure he has in fact gained from his own zeal."

Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher

Writing, Error, Effort, Understanding

Explore more quotes by Saul Bellow

"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."

Intelligence

"A fool can throw a stone in a pond that 100 wise men can not get out."

Man

"What is art but a way of seeing?"

Art

"California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn't really need. You can quote me on that."

Nation

"A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life."

Life

"There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war."

War

"It was probably no accident that it was the cripple Hephaestus who made ingenious machines; a normal man didn't have to hoist or jack himself over hindrances by means of cranks, chains and metal parts. Then it was in the line of human advance that Einhorn could do so much."

Innovation

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