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“When you write you tell yourself a story. When you rewrite you take out everything that is NOT the story.”
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“Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.”
― On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
― On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.”
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“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”
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“Running a close second [as a writing lesson] was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”
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Aileen’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Aileen’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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