The first discipline is the realization that there a discipline—-that all art begins and ends with discipline, that any art is first and foremost a craft. We have gone far enough on the road to self-indulgence now to know that. The man who announce...
You can tell a lot about a country by its prisons. In hippy-dippy Socialist Sweden, rapists and murders (all three of them) while away their days making arts and crafts in what are essentially taxpayer-funded mental health clinics. The Swedes’ theo...
You are not who you think you are. You are not your fears, your thoughts, or your body. You are not your insecurities, your career, or your memories. You're not what you're criticized for and you're not what you're praised for. You are a boundless we...
What is it about the moment you fall in love? How can such a small measure of time contain such enormity? I suddenly realize why people believe in déjà vu, why people believe they've lived past lives, because there is no way the years I've spent on...
Before I’ll take my clone on as a pupil in the craft of writing, he must prove his worthiness. He must write 100 thoughts down, of which 10 might be interesting. If he’s done that, good, then he must write 1,000 thoughts, of which 200 might be in...
A general is a specialist insofar as he has master his craft. Beyond that and outside the arbitrary pro and con, he keeps a third possibility intact and in reserve: his own substance. He knows more than what he embodies and teaches, has other skills ...
And the voice spoke even more deliberately: '...but remember what is under the ocean of clouds: eternity.' And suddenly that tranquil world, the world of such simple harmony that you discover as you rise above the clouds, took on an unfamiliar qualit...
There is an underlying rhythm to all text. Sentences crashing fall like the waves of the sea, and work unconsciously on the reader. Punctuation is the music of language. As a conductor can influence the experience of the song by manipulating its rhyt...
Show me you care about our common tongue. Bring to your [writing] passion, deeply informed by knowledge of your subject. Stay me, not with apples and flagons, but with wit and grace, humor and intense caring about your discipline. Don't slack, don't ...
J. R. R. Tolkien, the near-universally-hailed father of modern epic fantasy, crafted his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings to explore the forces of creation as he saw them: God and country, race and class, journeying to war and returning home. I’ve...
Pawnbroker: Burnt my fingers, man. Louis Winthorpe III: I beg your pardon? Pawnbroker: Man, that watch is so hot, it's smokin'. Louis Winthorpe III: Hot? Do you mean to imply stolen? Pawnbroker: I'll give you 50 bucks for it. Louis Winthorpe III: Fif...
Virgil: [looking at the picture Lindsey took of the alien craft] That's a great shot, Linds. Catfish De Vries: You drop your dive light? Lindsey Brigman: No, come on you guys, come on. Now that's the small one, that's the small one here. You can kind...
Insofar as craft and poetics in a poem have a politics, I wanted to avoid that brittle enjambed-prose-sentence-lyric verse, where you have standard sentences snapped off and scattered decoratively across the page (which I might go out on a limb and s...
It was with some surprise that I saw that the person waiting for me at the airport's exit was Adrian. A grin spread over my face, and I picked up the pace. I threw my arms around him, astonishing both of us. "I have never been happier to see you in m...
You digest and absorb your life by turning it into stories,' he says, 'the same way this theater seems to digest people.' With one hand, he points to a carpet stain, this dark stain sticky and growing mold, branched with arms and legs. Other events�...
As a songwriter, I'm gathering clues and possibilities all the time, whether I see a piano that day or not. I've tried to explain to people how I collect these dispatches, because I think anybody can do what I'm talking about. Once I do plug in, I mi...
