Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.
Stephen KingRead
High school isn't a very important place. When you're going you think it's a big deal, but when it's over nobody really thinks it was great unless they're beered up.
Interpretation
High school seems significant at the time but is often viewed as less important in hindsight.
Stephen King's quote reflects on the transient nature of high school experiences, suggesting that while it feels crucial during the moment, many people don't regard it as particularly meaningful once they have moved on. It highlights how our perception of significant life events can shift over time, often leading to a sense of nostalgia that is sometimes exaggerated by factors like social gatherings or drinking, which may cloud memories of those years.
In practice
During a graduation speech reflecting on high school experiences.
Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.
Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.
Hairstyles change, and skirt lengths, and slang, but high school administrations? Never.
Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.
That's the day's business. Thinking. Thinking and isolation, because it doesn't matter if you pass the time of day with someone or not; in the end, you're alone. He seemed to have put in as many miles in his brain as he had with his feet. The thoughts kept coming and there was no way to deny them.
Late last night and the night before, tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on my door. I wanna go out, don't know if I can 'cuz I'm so afraid of the tommyknocker man.
The minute that you're not learning I believe you're dead.
To teach a man how he may learn to grow independently, and for himself, is perhaps the greatest service that one man can do another.
I enjoy popularisation and I think I'm reasonably good at it. I also think it's a duty. It's just so pedagogically stupid to forget how difficult one found these ideas oneself to begin with.
Our attitude towards ourselves should be 'to be satiable in learning' and towards others 'to be tireless in teaching.
Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.
Good writing is lean and confident.
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