I write in the morning at a table, longhand on yellow legal pads, just like Nixon, when Iβm doing fiction.
Interpretation
Gore Vidal emphasizes the importance of a specific writing routine and medium that resonates with his creative process.
In this quote, Gore Vidal reflects on his approach to writing fiction, highlighting the simplicity and authenticity of writing longhand on yellow legal pads in the morning. By comparing his method to that of Richard Nixon, he invokes a sense of nostalgia and seriousness, suggesting that the act of writing is both a disciplined craft and a personal ritual that allows for creative expression.
In practice
In a writing workshop, to inspire students about the creative process.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
You a slave to a page in my rhyme book.
Music is powered by ideas. If you don't have clarity of ideas, you're just communicating sheer sound.
The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.
The film is made in the editing room. The shooting of the film is about shopping, almost. It's like going to get all the ingredients together, and you've got to make sure before you leave the store that you got all the ingredients. And then you take those ingredients and you can make a good cake - or not.
To whom does design address itself: to the greatest number, to the specialist of an enlightened matter, to a privileged social class? Design addresses itself to the need.
Adapting a novel is not really about being faithful to every word and every moment the author has created. It's more about that same story being filtered through somebody else's sensibility.
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