When writing loses touch with the beautiful surface of the world, it loses its way. You always want to be in touch with how things look and what people say and what they call their dogs.
Garrison KeillorRead
I've wanted to be a writer since I was a boy, though it seemed an unlikely outcome since I showed no real talent. But I persevered and eventually found my own row to hoe. Ignorance of other writers' work keeps me from discouragement and I am less well-read than the average bus driver.
Interpretation
Determination and perseverance can lead to success despite initial doubts.
This quote by Garrison Keillor reflects the journey of becoming a writer against the backdrop of self-doubt and a lack of perceived talent. It emphasizes the importance of perseverance and suggests that not being aware of the achievements of others can sometimes be beneficial, as it allows individuals to focus on their own path without feeling discouraged.
In practice
This quote could inspire students facing challenges in their writing courses during a workshop.
When writing loses touch with the beautiful surface of the world, it loses its way. You always want to be in touch with how things look and what people say and what they call their dogs.
Travel is the art form available to Everyman. You sit in the coffee shop in a strange city and nobody knows who you are, or cares, and so you shed your checkered past and your motley credentials and you face the day unarmed ... And onward we go and some day in the distant future, we will stop and turn around in astonishment to see all the places we've been and the heroes we were.
Thank you, dear God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough. Thank you for the rain. And for the chance to wake up in three hours and go fishing: I thank you for that now, because I won't feel so thankful then.
I have taken so many wrong turns and been so careless with precious things and managed to lose, or break, or leave out in the rain so much that I loved.
When you wage war on the public schools, you're attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You're not a conservative, you're a vandal.
It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.
We don't quit. I don't quit. Let's seize this moment.
At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division.
If we overcome the pull and "get up and get at it," we will have won a victory. We have kept our own resolve. We can then move to other things, for by small means great things are accomplished. Thus, even this one small step is also in another sense a giant leap.
There is only one thing in life you can control: Your own effort.
You want to set a goal that is big enough that in the process of achieveing it you become someone worth becoming.
We all get report cards in many different ways, but the real excitement of what you're doing is in the doing of it. It's not what you're gonna get in the end - it's not the final curtain - it's really in the doing it, and loving what you're doing.
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