Young screenwriters are always very frustrated when they talk to me. They say, 'How do we get to be a screenwriter?' I say, 'You know what you do? I'll tell you the secret, it's easy: Read 'Hamlet.' You know? Then read it again, and read it again, and read it until you understand it. Read 'King Lear,' and then read 'Othello.'
Interpretation
To become a great screenwriter, immersive reading of classic literature is essential.
This quote emphasizes the importance of foundational literary knowledge for aspiring screenwriters. By advocating for the close study of Shakespeare's works, John Logan suggests that understanding complex characters and narratives found in these timeless plays is crucial for writers who wish to develop their craft and storytelling abilities.
In practice
A workshop on screenwriting techniques could include a discussion on the importance of classical literature.
Personally speaking, growing up as a gay man before it was as socially acceptable as it is now, I knew what it was to feel different, to feel alienated and to feel not like everyone else. But the very same thing that made me monstrous to some people also empowered me and made me who I was.
Why don't we teach our children in school what they are? We should say to them, 'You are unique... you have the capacity for anything. You are a marvel'.
When you're a biographer, you want to explore the very things that your subject didn't care to talk about.
When I consider what some books have done for the world, and what they are doing, how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal life those whose hours are cold and hard, bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truth from heaven; I give eternal blessings for this gift, and thank God for books.
What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?
Education used to be a slice of life, something you did as a child through college, and then spent the rest of your life working, and then death. Everything is about to change. I believe education will become something that fits seamlessly into life, and we will take big clunky things like degrees and college and fit them into a weekend.
Readers, after all, are making the world with you. You give them the materials, but it's the readers who build that world in their own minds.
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