A Quote by William Faulkner
A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid.
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He [the writer] must, teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and compassion and sacrifice. See Poets & Writers
You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.
The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax.
A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.
All writing is an antisocial act, since the writer is a man who can speak freely only when alone; to be himself he must lock himself up, to communicate he must cut himself off from all communication; and in this there is something always a little mad.
It is only the basest writer who cannot speak of the sea without talking of "raging waves," "remorseless floods," "ravenous billows," etc.; and it is one of the signs of the highest power in a writer to check all such habits of thought, and to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the pure fact , out of which if any feeling comes to him or his reader, he knows it must be a true one.
What is afraid?' asked Peter longingly. He thought it must be some splendid thing. 'I do wish you would teach me how to be afraid, Maimie,' he said.
It must be the aim of education to teach the citizen that he must first of all rule himself.
Above all things, never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment.
I don't teach writing. I teach patience. Toughness. Stubbornness. The willingness to fail. I teach the life. The odd thing is most of the things that stop an inexperienced writer are so far from the truth as to be nearly beside the point. When you feel glosbal doubt about your talent, that is your talent. People who have no talent don't have any doubt.
The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.
The genius writer was correct. In obtaining freedom, man suddenly understands that he has shouldered a heavy burden, because freedom involves responsibility. A person must make decisions himself and himself answer for them.
I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.
We're just afraid, period. Our fear is free-floating. We're afraid this isn't the right relationship or we're afraid it is. We're afraid they won't like us or we're afraid they will. We're afraid of failure or we're afraid of success. We're afraid of dying young or we're afraid of growing old. We're more afraid of life than we are of death.
A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.
I've read some of Kurt Vonnegut letters from when he was young. He was a prisoner of war, and even when he was in his early twenties, there were things mentioned that showed up in his novels. One of the sweetest things in those letters was him wanting to be a writer but doubting himself, not having confidence in himself.
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