The whole excitement for writing anything is quite intense. And for a day or two, you think you've done everything extremely well. The problems start on the third day, and continues for the rest of your life.
Interpretation
Writing brings initial joy and confidence, but challenges emerge that persist throughout the process.
This quote by Tom Stoppard highlights the dual nature of writing as both an exhilarating and frustrating endeavor. Initially, the act of creation brings excitement and a sense of achievement, making the writer believe that everything is perfect. However, as time progresses, self-doubt and criticism arise, underscoring the ongoing struggles that accompany the creative process.
In practice
Using this quote in a writing workshop to encourage participants about the ups and downs of the creative process.
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
There's smoke in my iris, but I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids
Everyone is not able, or inclined, to write poetry in the narrower sense any more than everyone is qualified to take part in a walking race. But just as all of us can and do walk, so all of us can and do use language poetically.
When asked, 'How do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'
That strain again! It had a dying fall: _x000D_ _x000D_ O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound _x000D_ _x000D_ That breathes upon a bank of violets, _x000D_ _x000D_ Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more: _x000D_ _x000D_ 'Tis not so sweet as it was before.
Music is the weapon. Music is the weapon of the future.
The meaning of song goes deep. Who in logical words can explain the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for a moment gaze into that!
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