Writing, real writing, should leave a small sweet bruise somewhere on the writer . . . and on the reader.
Interpretation
Writing should evoke deep emotions and impact both the writer and the reader.
This quote emphasizes that true writing connects on an emotional level, leaving a lasting impression or 'bruise' that signifies the depth of the experience shared between the writer and the reader. It suggests that effective writing resonates with feelings and can profoundly affect both parties involved.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of personal expression through art.
Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation- in fairy tales, in analysis, and in individuation. The key question causes germination of consciousness. The properly shaped question always emanates from an essential curiosity about what stands behind. Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.
Tears are a river that takes you somewhere…Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace better.
Though fairy tales end after ten pages, our lives do not. We are multi-volume sets. In our lives, even though one episode amounts to a crash and burn, there is always another episode awaiting us and then another. There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them. Don't waste your time hating a failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success.
Stories are medicine. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything - we need only listen.
There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul's suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.
To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnt on the water.
There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language.
I have heard it said that a complicated childhood can lead to a life in the arts. I tell you this story of my father and me to let you know I am qualified to be a comedian.
Comics deal with fundamental archetypes. We've been called the myth-makers of the modern age.
I have all these friends who just love therapy, and I always say the reason that I'm absolutely not in therapy is because then I wouldn't have anything to write.
I pride myself on working with great musicians.
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