Friday, May 4, 2007

Why We Do That Thing We Do, Part L Famous People

Matt Curran set this particular hare a-running over on his blog, and I plan to dodge it for a moment because I've got a fever and am thinking none-too-straight (otherwise I would never have perpetrated a mixed metaphor such as 'dodging a hare'. Though it's not impossible, I suppose. In fact, the hare would probably happily dodge you.)

For the moment I'll take the lazy way out (cf. the first citation below) and lay down a few quotes from other writers about why they write:

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. – George Orwell

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. – Toni Morrison

If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. – Lord Byron

First, try to be something else, anything else. –Lorrie Moore

It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.
– Sinclair Lewis

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
– E.L. Doctorow

Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.
– Jules Renard

It’ll get rid of all those mood swings you’ve been having
– Ray Bradbury

...there was nothing else I was made to do. – Stephen King

Because I’m good at it. – Flannery O’Connor


I wish I could say that Flannery's answer summed up my own, but almost any other quote on the list comes closer.

5 comments:

Faye L. Booth said...

I can't answer that question without sounding like a schizophrenic or a pretentious luvvie.

(BTW, you've been tagged!)

Faye L. Booth said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David Thayer said...

I was briefly a hod-carrier. You pick up a stack of rebar from a flatbed, carry it to a foundation and drop it.
Then you get another stack of rebar.
My boss sat in a broken lawn chair with a wet rag on his forehead. He wanted to be a writer.

David Isaak said...

Well, I have to admit that Faye managed to Stump the Chump with "luvvie", and I had to resort to English2American.com (it was Cate Sweeney who first drove me to it, what with 'blag' and 'mardy' and the rest. Indispensible.)

David Isaak said...

David, I'm pretty sure I worked for exactly the same guy. Except that by the time I worked for him, his aspirations had been lowered to being The Guy Who Doesn't Have to Get Out of the Chair.

I'm about to TAG you (see Faye's post, above).