Art Is Memory

Art is memory. It is the excavation of so many memories we have had — of our mothers, our best and worst moments, of glorious experiences we have had with friends or films or music or dance or a lovely afternoon on a sloping, green hill. All of this enters us and, if we are artists, must be shared, handed over to others. This is why it is so important to know what came before you. It is also important to understand that things will follow you, and they may come along and make your work look pedestrian and silly. This is fine; this is progress. We have to work with what life presents to us, and we have to work as well as we can while we can.

MARTHA GRAHAM

Remove the Writerly-ness

I don’t trust my writing that is not written, although I work very hard in subsequent revisions to remove the writerly-ness from it, to give it a combination of lyrical, standard, and colloquial language. To pull all these things together into something that I think is much more alive and representative. But I don’t trust something that occurs to me and then is spoken and transferred immediately to the page.

TONI MORRISON

Value the Audience

I think about how I conceptualize the audience. The trick is that they’ve got to be smarter and more worldly than me. So as I’m revising, I’m keeping that in mind. I cannot condescend, even a little bit. Every single choice that I make is motivated by that. On the small level. If I give you a repetition of something that actually doesn’t yield any more information, it’s kind of disrespectful for me to let that stand. If I cut the repetition, there’s a subtle improvement in our relationship because you see that I’ve valued you.

GEORGE SAUNDERS

Does Writing Make You Happy?

Sometimes people ask, does writing make you happy? But I think that’s beside the point. It makes you agitated, and continually in a state where you’re off balance. You seldom feel serene or settled. You’re like the person in the fairy tale The Red Shoes; you’ve just got to dance and dance, you’re never in equilibrium. I don’t think writing makes you happy…. I think it makes for a life that by its very nature has to be unstable, and if it ever became stable, you’d be finished.

HILARY MANTEL

The Road Is Consciousness

If you want to be very good at this, the road is consciousness. Am I repeating this motif? Is this plausible? Does this track logically? Are the paragraph breaks in the right place? Is this information exposited too early? When should this man meet this woman? That was the gradual electrifying revelation – if one has native talent of the level I possess, then it’s about consciousness.

JAMES ELLROY

Bit by Bit, Putting It Together

Bit by bit, putting it together.... Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art. Every moment makes a contribution, Every little detail plays a part. Having just the vision's no solution, Everything depends on execution, Putting it together, that's what counts.

STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Stories Mimic Life

Stories mimic life like certain insects mimic leaves and twigs. Stories are about all the things that might’ve, could’ve, or would’ve happened, encrowded around and giving density and shape to undeniable physical events and phenomena. They are the rich, unseen underlayer of the most ordinary moments.

MARY GAITSKILL

The Highest Kind of Writing

The highest kind of writing—which must not be confused with the most ambitious kind…belongs to the realm of grace. Talent is part of it, certainly; a thorough understanding of the secret laws, absolutely. But finding the subject and theme which is in perfect harmony with your deepest nature, your forgotten selves, your hidden dreams, and the full unresonated essence of your life—now that cannot be reached through searching, nor can it be stumbled upon through ambition. That sort of serendipity comes upon you on a lucky day. It may emerge even out of misfortune or defeat. You may happen upon it without realizing that this is the work through which your whole life will sing. We should always be ready. We should always be humble. Creativity should always be a form of prayer.

BEN OKRI

Keep Going

The writers who are prepared to keep going are the ones who are going to make it. I can guarantee that a writer with 80 percent of the talent and 100 percent of the desire will be so much better than the person with 100 percent of the talent and only 80 percent of the desire. It always works that way.

COLUM McCANN

Writing As Play

My father, without, I think, realizing what he was doing, made me think of writing as play rather than work. He was always telling me stories, encouraging me, taking an interest in my toy theater, and so on. And it seems to me that writing has been a game that I have gone on playing ever since. I am inclined to think of writers who bore me as being “workers.”

CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD