Sometimes it's best to speak from ignorance: that way, you can see the wood without being distracted by the trees.
Howard JacobsonRead
In my experience, every book you write changes the conditions in which you write the next.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing influences future writing experiences and conditions.
This quote by Howard Jacobson suggests that each book a writer creates has a profound impact on their subsequent writing processes and environments. It emphasizes the idea that the act of writing is a dynamic journey, where past experiences and creations shape the context and challenges for future projects, leading to growth and evolution as a writer.
Themes
WritingBooksExperienceProcessCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, a participant could use this quote to illustrate how their previous projects have influenced their current work.
More from Howard Jacobson
All quotes βI think one of the main reasons I write is to do better than ranting. The ranting is the opinion, and the writing is not the opinion. I always say that people's opinions are the worst things about them. The words demand a dignity.
Howard JacobsonRead
How do you explain to somebody who doesn't understand that you don't build a library to read. A library is a resource. Something you go to, for reference, as and when. But also something you simply look at, because it gives you succour, answers to some idea of who you are or, more to the point, who you would like to be, who you will be once you own every book you need to own.
Howard JacobsonRead
It is no judgement of a thing outside yourself to say it makes you ill. The wise reader knows that every pronouncement is, to some degree, an act of self-exposure; the book you find too challenging might only show how ill-equipped you are to face its challenge.
Howard JacobsonRead
For a lot of readers these days, a book is something you have to agree or disagree with. But you can't agree with a novel. For my generation, it was assumed that a book is a dramatic thing, that the eye of the book is not telling you what to think.
Howard JacobsonRead
It isn't only in the name of free speech that the views of an itchy polemicist should be tolerated - and I say itchy polemicist promoting thought, not itchy ideologue promoting violence - but because provocation is indispensable to the workings of a sound, creative culture.
Howard JacobsonRead
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Let not a man do what his sense of right bids him not to do, nor desire what it forbids him to desire. This is sufficient. The skillful artist will not alter his measures for the sake of a stupid workman.
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There is no proof. There are no authorities whatever. No president, Academy, Court of Law, Congress or Senate on this earth has the knowledge or power to decide what will be the knowledge of tomorrow. There is no use in trying to prove something that is unknown to somebody who is ignorant of the unknown, or fearful of its threatening power. Only the good old rules of learning will eventually bring about understanding of what has invaded our earthly existence.
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So many people trip in front of them because they're looking over there or up ahead.
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We're terrified of not having the answers, and we would sometimes rather assert an incorrect answer than make our peace with the fact that we really don't know.
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It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay to antiquity its due reverence.
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