The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Search results for “zadie smith”

George Orwell on Writing and the Four Questions Great Writers Must Ask Themselves
George Orwell on Writing and the Four Questions Great Writers Must Ask Themselves

“By using stale metaphors, similes and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself.”

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Ray Bradbury on Failure, Why We Hate Work, and the Importance of Love in Creative Endeavors
Ray Bradbury on Failure, Why We Hate Work, and the Importance of Love in Creative Endeavors

How working for the wrong motives poisons our creativity and warps our ideas of success and failure.

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Anne Lamott on Writing and Why Perfectionism Kills Creativity
Anne Lamott on Writing and Why Perfectionism Kills Creativity

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.”

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Eudora Welty on the Poetics of Place and Writing as an Explorer’s Map of the Unknown
Eudora Welty on the Poetics of Place and Writing as an Explorer’s Map of the Unknown

“No art ever came out of not risking your neck.”

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Ray Bradbury on How List-Making Can Boost Your Creativity
Ray Bradbury on How List-Making Can Boost Your Creativity

How to feel your way toward something honest, hidden under the trapdoor on the top of your skull.

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Nietzsche’s 10 Rules for Writers, Penned in a Letter to His Lover and Muse
Nietzsche’s 10 Rules for Writers, Penned in a Letter to His Lover and Muse

“Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only that one thinks it but also feels it.”

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2013’s Best Books on Writing and Creativity
2013’s Best Books on Writing and Creativity

Timeless wisdom and practical advice on the pleasures and perils of the written word and the creative life.

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How to Be a Writer: Hemingway’s Advice to Aspiring Authors
How to Be a Writer: Hemingway’s Advice to Aspiring Authors

“As a writer you should not judge. You should understand.”

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Dani Shapiro on the Pleasures and Perils of Writing and the Creative Life
Dani Shapiro on the Pleasures and Perils of Writing and the Creative Life

“It is in the thousands of days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert, and alive.”

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The Art of “Creative Sleep”: Stephen King on Writing and Wakeful Dreaming
The Art of “Creative Sleep”: Stephen King on Writing and Wakeful Dreaming

“In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives.”

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