A Quote by Wendy Cope
When a poem doesn't work, the first question to ask yourself is, 'Am I telling the truth?'
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If you ask a living teacher a question, he will probably answer you. If you are puzzled by what he says, you can save yourself the trouble of thinking by asking him what he means. If, however, you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself. In this respect a book is like nature or the world. When you question it, it answers you only to the extent that you do the work of thinking an analysis yourself.
If you want to find what God put you here to do, ask yourself three questions. First question: What comes easy to you but harder to other people? The second question is: What would you do for years and never have to get paid for it? Third, ask yourself: How can you be of service?
Every once in awhile, find a spot of shade, sit down on the grass or dirt, and ask yourself this question: “Do I respect myself?” A corollary to this question: “Do I respect the work I’m doing?” If the answer to the latter question is NO, then the answer to the former question will probably be NO too. If this is the case, wait a few weeks, then ask yourself the same two questions. If the answers are still NO, quit.
If you go into a police station and report a burglary the first question is not: 'Are you telling the truth?' If you are the victim of a sexual offence, very often in the past that has been the first question.
Start telling the truth now and never stop. Begin by telling the truth to yourself about yourself. Then tell the truth to yourself about someone else. Then tell the truth about yourself to another. Then tell the truth about another to that other. Finally, tell the truth to everyone about everything. These are the Five Levels Of Truth Telling. This is the five-fold path to freedom.
What am I doing on a level of consciousness where this is real? That is the first question to ask yourself when you become aware of something ugly or evil or stupid.
Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don't work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work.
The impulse to create begins - often terribly and fearfully - in a tunnel of silence. Every real poem is the breaking of an existing silence, and the first question we might ask any poem is, What kind of voice is breaking silence, and what kind of silence is being broken?
If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, "What's your business?" In Macon they ask, "Where do you go to church?" In Augusta they ask your grandmother's maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is "What would you like to drink?"
Instinct is the gift of experience. The first question you have to ask yourself is, 'On what basis am I making a judgment?' ... If you have no experience, then your instincts aren't any good.
It's the most annoying question and they just can't help asking you. You'll be asked it at family gatherings, weddings, and on first dates. And you'll ask yourself far too often. It's the question that has no good answer. It's the question that when people stop asking it, you'll feel even worse. - WHY ARE YOU SINGLE?
The "truth" is the poem itself. Just because someone writes a poem about a feeling she has does not mean that the feeling will stay forever. The truth of the emotion of the poem remains, even if the particular truth of the poet changes.
I'd always thought telling the truth to other people was hard, but maybe that was a snap compared to telling the truth to yourself. Sometimes we just refused to know what we knew.
When the people who are responsible for our country ask you a direct question, I expect them to accept a direct answer, not to be blackballed because you are telling the truth.
That is the first thing to learn - not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-shopping. The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.
The fascination about being a judge is the same about the duty of being a judge, and that is to ask yourself, Why am I about to rule the way I am about to rule? You must always ask yourself that question.
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