A Quote by William Faulkner

The writer has three sources: imagination, observation, and experience

William Faulkner

Quote Topics

Experience Imagination Observation Sources Three Writer

Quote Author

William Faulkner
American - Writer
September 25, 1897 - July 6, 1962

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.

William Faulkner

Creativity has much to do with experience, observation and imagination, and if any one of those key elements is missing, it doesn't work.

Bob Dylan

Intuition is for thinking what observation is for perception. Intuition and observation are the sources of our knowledge.

Rudolf Steiner

Imagination! Imagination! I put it first years ago, when I was asked what qualities I thought necessary for success upon the stage. And I am still of the same opinion. Imagination, industry [hard work], and intelligence-the three I's-are all indispensable to the actor, but of these three the greatest is, without any doubt, imagination.

Ellen Terry

In terms of sources coming forward, I really reject this idea of talking about one, two, three sources. There are many sources that have informed the reporting we've done and I think that Americans owe them a debt of gratitude for taking the risk they do.

Laura Poitras

We have three approaches at our disposal: the observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation serves to assemble the data, reflection to synthesise them and experimentation to test the results of the synthesis. The observation of nature must be assiduous, just as reflection must be profound, and experimentation accurate. These three approaches are rarely found together, which explains why creative geniuses are so rare.

John Dewey

In collecting evidence upon any medical subject, there are but three sources from which we can hope to obtain it; viz. from observation on medical the living subject; from examination of the dead; and from experiments upon living animals.

Astley Cooper

The idea of a group of elders is that, in past civilizations, they have linked worlds; the other world was also present in this one. There is also the argument that elders have "experience." The problem is that experience teaches fear of change. Experience kills imagination. Experience makes people conservative. What we are facing tomorrow requires the force of imagination, not wisdom from yesterday.

Jacques Yves Cousteau

[A writer is] a priest of eternal imagination, transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of everliving life.

James Joyce

The worst advice a young writer can get is "Write what you know." Imagination is more important than experience.

Joe Haldeman

We know nothing of the principle of health, the positive of which pathology is the negative, except from observation and experience. Nothing but observation and experience will teach us the ways to maintain or to bring back the state of health. It is often thought that medicine is the curative process. It is no such thing; medicine is the surgery of functions as surgery proper is that of limbs and organs.

Florence Nightingale

Henry Corbin creates the world - most of all his examination of the imagination and what the imagination was for him. Some philosophers would think of the imagination as a synthetic ability, how you put different things together. Artists more think of the imagination as creativity. So I really like the way that he presents the imagination as a faculty that allows one to experience worlds that are not exactly physical but are real nonetheless.

Ben Chasny

You see, it's really quite simple. A simile is just a mode of comparison employing 'as' and 'like' to reveal the hidden character or essence of whatever we want to describe, and through the use of fancy, association, contrast, extension, or imagination, to enlarge our understanding or perception of human experience and observation.

Norton Juster

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

Denis Diderot

Imagination, which is a quality writers must have, does not mean the ability to weave pretty stories out of nothing. In the right sense, imagination is a response to what is going on — a sensitiveness to which outside things appeal. It is a composition of sympathy and observation.