A Quote by Tom T. Hall
Sinclair Lewis was asked one time to give a talk to class of students about writing. When he got there he asked the class, Do you people want to be writers?and they all said yes. Then Lewis said, Why the hell aren't you at home writing?
Related Quotes
Who here wants to be a writer?' I asked. Everyone in the room raised his hand. 'Why the hell aren't you home writing?' I said, and left the stage.
A professor was telling students about his colleagues class. Students in the other class had taken to tossing erasers at the clock. Each precise hit caused it to jump ahead one minute. Before class one morning they succeeded in advancing the clock by ten minutes. Since the new time indicated that the professor was beyond the accepted starting time, the class left. The professor never said a word about the incident. However, he presented the class with a killer of a final exam. As the students labored to finish in the allotted time, the professor amused himself by tossing erasers at the clock.
And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes.
I just went home to Illinois, and I asked my family, 'Are you guys planning on talking in those accents the whole time I'm home?' And my mother said, 'You used to talk like that, too, Tasha.' And I said, 'Yes, but you see, I've reinvented myself. Do you have any idea who I think I am?'
Sinclair Lewis is the perfect example of the false sense of time of the newspaper world.... [ellipsis in source] He was always dominated by an artificial time when he wrote Main Street.... He did not create actual human beings at any time. That is what makes it newspaper. Sinclair Lewis is the typical newspaperman and everything he says is newspaper. The difference between a thinker and a newspaperman is that a thinker enters right into things, a newspaperman is superficial.
I was having tea with a guy I was introduced to, about the possibility of working with him at his production company. He asked me if I'd written anything, and I said yes. Then he said 'why don't you just shoot it'? And I thought, "duh!" Best advice I ever got.
Now that my wine has been served in the White House, why not me? Who could talk to farmers better than I? Somebody even asked me the other day if I had anything in my platform about taxes. 'Hell yes,' I said. 'Great state. But I wouldn't want to live there.'
With my students I give them lots and lots of guided writing. Part of it is as simple as writing a lot but not toward anything. The mind floats. Then I help them see where the language has heat. If we do this a lot in class, students eventually relax into this writing practice and enjoy it. Even just that - writing pleasure without the anxiety of "audience" or "grade" or "success" - is a kind of impetus toward the unfamiliar.
I was at an autograph show, and there were a lot of people from TNA there doing meet and greets. One of the girls from TNA there asked me why I hadn't joined yet and I said I'd tried and it didn't work out. She asked me to give her a video and pictures, and a few days later I got asked to do a tryout.
"What's that?" the Unbeliever asked.
"Wisdom from the Western Taoist," I said.
"It sounds like something from Winnie-the-Pooh," he said.
"It is," I said.
"That's not about Taoism," he said.
"Oh, yes it is," I said.
In history class, I wrote a poem, 'The Royalists and the Roundheads.' I would write poems about driftwood in art class and little stories about the sun, moon, and stars in science class. Since not many kids were writing in class, I got away with it.
I got so tired of hearing those proverbs when I was a child. Now I use them all the time. Sometimes they are the best way to say what needs to be said. I teach them to my students. I have a collection of proverbs for class discussion and writing assignments.
If you haven't taken a writing class, take a writing class. I took every class that was available in my area. I went to conferences inside and outside my area to network with people. That's how I got my agent. I found my agent through another agent who was at a conference.
I asked each if [Yao Xingtong and Zhang Lanxin] was afraid of heights. Each said no, and although they had never had the action movie experience they were willing to be trained. Then I asked if they could swim, and each said yes, but she (gestures toward YX) is better. She said, I can also dive, in fact I once won a diving championship in an international competition. Then she said, "But big brother, I'm not very strong," and I said that's all right.
I remember, one teacher in Year 11 asked the class what everyone wanted to do when they grow up, and I said, 'I want to be a professional wrestler.' The teacher laughed and said to be serious.
My second-grade teacher went around the class and asked everybody what they were going to be when they grew up. I said, 'I want to travel the world,' and he said, 'You'll be married and pregnant by 21, just like all the girls in this room.'
Related Authors
Ani DiFranco Quotes
American
Musician
Bob Dylan Quotes
American
Musician
Brian Eno Quotes
British
Musician
Bruce Springsteen Quotes
American
Musician
David Bowie Quotes
English
Musician
Drake Quotes
Canadian
Musician
Elton John Quotes
English
Musician
George Harrison Quotes
British
Musician
Henry Rollins Quotes
American
Musician
John Lennon Quotes
English
Musician
Madonna Ciccone Quotes
American
Musician
Moby Quotes
American
Musician
Nicki Minaj Quotes
American
Musician
Patti Smith Quotes
American
Musician
Thom Yorke Quotes
English
Musician
Tori Amos Quotes
American
Musician