We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Which leads me to my second point: writers do not write what they want, they write what they can.
Interpretation
Writers must embrace their own unique perspectives and limitations rather than attempting to conform to a universal standard.
This quote by Zadie Smith emphasizes the importance of authenticity in writing. It suggests that writers are not merely expressing whatever they wish to express; instead, they are influenced by their individual experiences, capabilities, and identities. This highlights the idea that true creativity comes from personal authenticity and recognizing one's own voice within the constraints of one's abilities.
In practice
In a writing workshop, to encourage students to embrace their unique voices.
Because immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition - it's something to do with that experience of moving from West to East or East to West or from island to island. Even when you arrive, you're still going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There's no proper term for it - original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better.
You know, you don't expect everyone to be as educated as everyone else or have the same achievements, but you expect at least to be offered at least some of the opportunities, and libraries are the most simple and the most open way to give people access to books.
He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.
I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka as roughage.
I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them.
I can't add. I don't understand basic science. Or anything else. But I can read anything. I've always been able to, and I've always liked to. Even if I didn't understand it, I liked to.
The big cop-out would be to accept popularity rather than opting to try to create potent work. It's so easy to do the popular thing, the expected thing, and that's where you start to cheat yourself - and your fans, in the end - because there's an inherent dishonesty in pandering and dishing up what everyone's expecting.
A picture is poem without words.
Novel-writing is, for the novelist, a game of let's pretend.
Composers and musicians have always starved and, as this is a sentimental country, we think the tradition should be continued.
I try never to wear my own clothes, I pretend I'm someone else
The first thing you have to get used to in any kind of acting is the ability to make a fool of yourself. If you haven't learnt how to make a fool of yourself, you shouldn't be on the boards. That's absolutely what it's all about.
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