I started to write as a child as soon as I could read, or even before, when my mother read me Beatrix Potter at bedtime. Writing seemed to me to be the only sensible way to live and be happy.
Interpretation
Writing offers a path to happiness and fulfillment stemming from early inspirations.
In this quote, Jane Gardam reflects on her childhood experience with stories read by her mother, which ignited her passion for writing. She conveys that writing became her chosen way to express herself and find joy, suggesting that creative pursuits rooted in early influences can profoundly shape one's happiness and life choices.
In practice
Using this quote to inspire students in a creative writing class.
Stories of all lengths and depths come from different parts of the cave. For a novel, you must lay in mental, physical and spiritual provision as for a siege or for a time of hectic explosions, while a short story is, or can be, a steady, timed flame like the lighting of a blow lamp on a building site full of dry tinder.
I discovered that writing was very nice indeed when I was very young, and I never changed. I don't think my style has changed very much at all - though I hope what I say is a bit more interesting. It's about getting to know a character and loving them, I think.
I was nearly 40 when I started. I had no fear that I wasn't going to write. I knew it was just delayed. Then, my goodness, I never stopped.
In modern novels, there is no one I want to copy. My style 'is a poor thing, but it is my own.'
Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. ...Art is the most intense mode of Individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of Individualism that the world has known. ...Art is Individualism.
I don't think punk fashion is a specter or overemphasized - it made a big impression, as there had never been anything like it before.
Ah, steeds, steeds, what steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes? Is there a sensitive ear, alert as a flame, in your every fiber? Hearing the familiar song from above, all in one accord you strain your bronze chests and, hooves barely touching the ground, turn into straight lines cleaving the air, and all inspired by God it rushes on!
Photography begins not in the camera but in the _x000D_ mind and the eye. The real work is one of noticing and appreciating, seeing things clearly and differently, and _x000D_ sharing that vision with others. I have developed my _x000D_ vision and my photographic craft in order to bring _x000D_ the beauty of nature to light in a fresh way that _x000D_ can inspire and nourish people.
With age, art and life become one.
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