Despite the fact that there's not much writing going on around here these days, two of several interesting quotes from this article (translated--feel free to correct me):
"For the Spanish writer and journalist Rosa Montero, the key is in the necessity to write. 'I've come to learn, with time, that a writer is, in reality, the one who needs to write in order to live. That is to say, to face the darkness of life, to be able to get up each morning. One is a writer because he can't not be; because of this, most novelists, for example, began writing in childhood: it's something that's part of your basic structure. So that necessity is what makes you a real writer, but that's not to say that it would make you a good writer.'"
"A writer is a strange thing. He's a contradiction and he's nonsense. To write isn't to talk. It's to be quiet. It's to wail without sound."
>> One is a writer because he can't not be
ReplyDeleteiirc Rilke wrote something like this to a young poet: Ask yourself, "*Must* I write?" and write only if the answer is yes.
Or something like this (recalled/paraphrased from the 1970s)