A story is like something you wind out of yourself. Like a spider, it is a web you weave, and you love your story like a child.
Katherine Anne PorterRead
Writing, in any sense that matters, cannot be taught. It can only be learned by each separate one of us in his own way, by the use of his own powers of imagination and perception, the ability to learn the lessons he has set for himself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing is a personal and unique journey that each person must undertake themselves.
This quote emphasizes that the art of writing is not something that can be effectively taught in a conventional sense. Instead, it is a deeply personal process where each individual must engage their imagination and perception, learning and growing through their own experiences and insights.
Themes
WritingLearningImaginationPerceptionEducation
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop, I could emphasize how writing must be a personal exploration.
More from Katherine Anne Porter
All quotes →You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.
Katherine Anne PorterRead
They had both noticed that a life of dissipation sometimes gave to a face the look of gaunt suffering spirituality that a life of asceticism was supposed to give and quite often did not.
Katherine Anne PorterRead
Miracles are instantaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves, usually at unlikely moments and to those who least expect them.
Katherine Anne PorterRead
Now and again thousands of memories _x000D_ converge, harmonize, _x000D_ arrange themselves around a central idea _x000D_ in a coherent form, _x000D_ and I write a story.
Katherine Anne PorterRead
Childhood is the fiery furnace in which we are melted down to essentials and that essential shaped for good.
Katherine Anne PorterRead
Similar quotes
We read to find ourselves, more fully and more strangely than otherwise we could hope to find.
Harold BloomRead
I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start off with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That's like starting in at rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. Short stories help you learn your craft.
George R. R. MartinRead
Don't be afraid to ask the 'dumb' question, everyone else will be relieved you had the guts to ask!
Sheryl SandbergRead
The librarian's mission should be, not like up to now, a mere handling of the book as an object, but rather a know how (mise au point) of the book as a vital function.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
Introducing a spelling test to a student by saying, 'Let's see how many words you know,' is different from saying, 'Let's see how many words you know already.' It is only one word, but the already suggests that any words the child knows are ahead of expectation and, most important, that there is nothing permanent about what is known and not known.
Peter JohnstonRead
We think scientific literacy flows out of how many science facts can you recite rather than how was your brain wired for thinking. And it's the brain wiring that I'm more interested in rather than the facts that come out of the curriculum or the lesson plan that's been proposed.
Neil Degrasse TysonRead