A Quote by James Joyce

If there is any difficulty in what I write, it is because of the material I use. The thought is always simple. — © James Joyce
If there is any difficulty in what I write, it is because of the material I use. The thought is always simple.
Where the novel makes use of material from my life it does so because it's aesthetically convenient, not because of any allegiance it has to any verifiable facts.
All good writers inspire me as I have never thought I was any good. As far as a writer who made me think I could do it, it was Henry Miller. Not because I thought he was so simple that I reckoned I could pull it off as well, but it was his freedom and guts that really moved me to want to write all the time.
You've just gotta go in and write from the heart and write the best material that you can and put it out. If one hits, hey, great. It keeps the legacy going. But you've gotta keep doing new material. It's the future of any band.
I was always silly in high school. I used to always get in trouble because I was laughing. I've always thought I was funny but never thought I could use it to make money. In 1996, I decided I was going to use my humor to get on TV to make money.
When you're overthinking a thought like the way I do, I can get completely pulled away from something I'm in the middle of because my thought channel just won't help me get from point A to point B without any difficulty.
As to the war, while it is always thought rash to have any strong military convictions, I have always believed that if they would go straight to Sebastopol early in the season they would take it with little difficulty.
I always write a draft version of the novel in which I try to develop, not the story, not the plot, but the possibilities of the plot. I write without thinking much, trying to overcome all kinds of self-criticism, without stopping, without giving any consideration to the style or structure of the novel, only putting down on paper everything that can be used as raw material, very crude material for later development in the story.
I've told youngsters not to write their autobiographical novel at the age of twenty-one; to save it for the time when they're fifty-one or sixty-one. They should write other novels first, to learn their craft; they shouldn't cut their teeth on the valuable material of childhood because they'll never have better material, ever, to work with.
Some people don't like my songs because they think they're too simple or easy or not that thought-out. I feel like the way I write is pretty simple, in some ways, because I'm trying to connect. I want a lot of people to hear it, and be moved in some way.
I have a really good idea of who my readers are and always write with a sensitivity to my audience. I use the F word when necessary, but there are words I won't use, mainly because I don't like them. I don't write about body parts when I write about sex. It's not about the physiological, it's more important for teens to read about the emotional aspects. I do think there are times when self-censorship is important.
I've always thought of the book as a visual art form, and it should represent a single artistic idea, which it does if you write your own material.
Fans are people, and people sometimes get mad at air. I know I do. So I have people huff at me because I'm not doing what they want, but I also have people get mad because I use profanity, or because I exist in material space, or because I was at Disneyland when they thought I should be writing.
I write because I have an innate need to. I write because I can't do normal work. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it.
I believe a good writer can write a good book with any sort of character, in any sort of setting, but I prefer to write about the outsider. It might just be because I've been one (or perceived myself to be one) for so much of my life. But the simple fact of being marginalized immediately brings conflict to a story before the narrative even begins, and that's gold for a writer because it means that your character already has depth before events begin to unfold.
Knowing is not simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us.
I always thought, I can't waste time, I have to do work. I also thought that I was slower than other people, that I had to concentrate more. I always thought, I'm not brilliant, I have to work. That was something I embedded in myself very early: I have to go home and write. But did I get any more work done than people like Frank O'Hara, who were always going to parties? Probably not.
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