The Writing Life
Metadata
- Author: Annie Dillard
- ASIN: B000W93CNG
- ISBN: 0060919884
- Reference: https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B000W93CNG
- Kindle link
Highlights
spend fabricating solid worlds that answer to immaterial truths. — location: 164
I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do not read in the first place. — location: 221
The writer knows his field—what has been done, what could be done, the limits—the way a tennis player knows the court. And like that expert, he, too, plays the edges. — location: 663
It is no less difficult to write sentences in a recipe than sentences in Moby-Dick. So you might as well write Moby-Dick. — location: 693
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes. — location: 775
If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight. — location: 784