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James Merrill

"Before trying a novel I wrote a couple of plays."

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"Before trying a novel I wrote a couple of plays."

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Amber Hurdle

"Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists."

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Amber Hurdle

"A true piece of writing sets you free."

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Amber Hurdle

"A writer's duty is to draw a picture that expresses more inner beauty, deeper anxiety, and more complex tragedy than a real character ever can."

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Amber Hurdle

"You are the writer of your life story, so don't forget to write the best one."

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Amber Hurdle

"If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered."

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Amber Hurdle

"Through writing, an author opens the window of his heart through which a reader can see the inner self of the author."

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Amber Hurdle

"Writing means not just staring ugliness in the face, but finding a way to embrace it."

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Amber Hurdle

"Write about the beauty of rainbows and the glint of reflected light that can enlighten readers' minds."

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Amber Hurdle

"Writing is a great way of talking with an endless audience for never-ending time."

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Amber Hurdle

"What is your advice to young writers? "Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes."

Explore more quotes by James Merrill

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James Merrill
"Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe - fascinating but too schematic to fit into my scheme. The most I could hope for was a sense of the vocabulary and some possible images."
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James Merrill
"I'd like to think the scientists need us - but do they? Did Newton need Blake?"
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James Merrill
"He puts his right hand lightly on the cup, I put my left, leaving the right free to transcribe, and away we go. We get, oh, 500 to 600 words an hour. Better than gasoline."
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James Merrill
"At college I'd seen my dead frog's limbs twitch under some applied stimulus or other - seen, but hadn't believed. Didn't dream of thinking beyond or around what I saw."
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James Merrill
"And, as I have said, it's made me think twice about the imagination. If the spirits aren't external, how astonishing the mediums become! Victor Hugo said of his voices that they were like his own mental powers multiplied by five."
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James Merrill
"The simplest science book is over my head."
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James Merrill
"In life, there are no perfect affections."
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James Merrill
"But those two plays left me on fresh terms with language. I didn't always have to speak in my own voice."
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James Merrill
"Strange about parents. We have such easy access to them and such daunting problems of communication."
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James Merrill
"Knowing some Greek helped defuse forbidding words - not that I counted much on using them. You'll find only trace elements of this language in the poem."
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