That is all the National Parks are about. Use, but do no harm.
Wallace StegnerRead
Are you a reader? If you aren't a reader, you might as well forget trying to be a writer.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Reading is essential for becoming a successful writer.
This quote by Wallace Stegner emphasizes the importance of reading as a foundational skill for anyone aspiring to write. It suggests that without exposure to written works and an understanding of different styles and ideas through reading, one cannot develop the skills necessary to be an effective writer themselves.
Themes
ReadingWritingEducationLiteratureSkills
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, to emphasize the importance of reading, I might say: 'Remember, as Wallace Stegner said, if you aren't a reader, forget about being a writer.'
More from Wallace Stegner
All quotes βTouch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.
Wallace StegnerRead
Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality.
Wallace StegnerRead
Young writers should be encouraged to write, and discouraged from thinking they are writers.
Wallace StegnerRead
I was shaped by the west and have lived most of my life in it, and nothing would gratify me more than to see it in all its subregions and subcultures both prosperous and environmentally healthy, with a civilization to match its scenery.
Wallace StegnerRead
Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.
Wallace StegnerRead
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You canβt learn your craft by copying me or anyone else. I hope what I do can do is in some way inspire others but I would be appalled if I thought my work was being studied as βthe right way to do the jobβ. My way is just one of an infinite number of ways to do the job.
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There are two subjects, indeed, which I shall claim a right to further as long as I breathe: the public education, and the sub-division of counties into wards. I consider the continuance of republican government as absolutely hanging on these two hooks.
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The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.
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