“A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he trusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. So he goes to work. To write a novel? No--that is a thought which comes later; in the beginning he is only proposing to tell a little tale, a very little tale, a six-page tale. But as it is a tale which he is not acquainted with, and can only find out what it is by listening as it goes along telling itself, it is more than apt to go on and on and on till it spreads itself into a book. I know about this, because it has happened to me so many times.”
― Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales
― Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales
“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make.”
― Truman Capote: Conversations
― Truman Capote: Conversations
“Nobody knows who I am or what I do. Not even I.
Don Juan Matus
”
― Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan
Don Juan Matus
”
― Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan
“Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete.”
― Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan
― Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan
“She could not explain or quite understand that it wasn't altogether jealousy she felt, it was rage. And not because she couldn't shop like that or dress like that. It was because that was what girls were supposed to be like. That was what men - people, everybody - thought they should be like. Beautiful, treasured, spoiled, selfish, pea-brained. That was what a girl should be, to be fallen in love with. Then she would become a mother and she'd be all mushily devoted to her babies. Not selfish anymore, but just as pea-brained. Forever.”
― Runaway: Stories
― Runaway: Stories
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