The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.
Thomas MannRead
One must die to life in order to be utterly a creator.
Interpretation
To truly create, one must let go of traditional attachments to life and experience.
This quote by Thomas Mann reflects the idea that true creativity often requires a profound transformation or sacrifice. In order to reach a higher level of artistic expression, an individual may need to abandon their conventional understanding of life, embracing a new perspective that allows for greater freedom and innovation in their creative processes.
In practice
In a speech about the struggles of artists, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for personal sacrifice in the pursuit of great art.
The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.
Stupid β well, there are so many kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.
It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.
I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh.
Literature... is the union of suffering with the instinct for form.
The Freudian theory is one of the most important foundation stones for an edifice to be built by future generations, the dwelling of a freer and wiser humanity.
Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.
I get my best ideas in a thunderstorm. I have the power and majesty of nature on my side.
Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It's a black wall. It's a thief.
I got into the business because I love writing. When it came down to finding my voice, which every writer has to take time to do, I think I realized I write black people very well. I write us in a very honest way, and I want to hear the way we really talk.
I adore adverbs; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.
The ambivalence of writing is such that it can be considered both an act and an interpretive process that follows after an act with which it cannot coincide. As such, it both affirms and denies its own nature.
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