Thomas Mann quote
Gene Harris
which includes some kind of quote about writing, usually from well-known
writers. This was today's:
"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for
other people."
-- Thomas Mann
Reminds me of the oft-quoted phrase from either Mark Twain or Winston
Churchill or somebody apologizing for the length of a letter because he
didn't have time to write a shorter one. Also reminds me of the quote
from somebody-or-other who said that writing was easy; all you have to do
is sit down at the keyboard and open a vein.
I guess writing is hard for writers than for others because we want so
much to get it right. Anyway, I agree with the sentiment. Sometimes,
for me, the words flow easily, but most of the time it's mighty hard
work.
Gene
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen
>I guess writing is hard for writers than for others because we want so
>much to get it right. Anyway, I agree with the sentiment. Sometimes,
>for me, the words flow easily, but most of the time it's mighty hard
>work.
>
>Gene
But if writing came easy to the writer, he would have little value for
the talent because he didn't have to work. There are lots of
extremely talented people in all of the arts who never gain
recognition simply because they don't have to work hard to produce
their art.
Caroline
MC
Gene Harris <gr8...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Reminds me of the oft-quoted phrase from either Mark Twain or Winston
> Churchill or somebody apologizing for the length of a letter because he
> didn't have time to write a shorter one.
Blaise Pascal.
Gene Harris
Hey, I did say, "or somebody".
Gene
MC
Gene Harris <gr8...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> Reminds me of the oft-quoted phrase from either Mark Twain or Winston
> >> Churchill or somebody apologizing for the length of a letter because he
> >> didn't have time to write a shorter one.
> >
> > Blaise Pascal.
>
> Hey, I did say, "or somebody".
I wasn't correcting you!
CalvinoSvevo2000
>I wasn't correcting you!
>
attributed to Chekhov. Definitely Chekhov.
Whoever the author, he knew what he was talking about. It's one of the wisest
observations about writing I've ever come across. :-)
Liked the Thomas Mann, too. I hate posting. I'm always afraid I'm going to make
some silly error in haste, and while this is not for the ages, it would nice to
be reasonably accurate.
Example: As I was typing, the spelling of Mann's first name suddenly looked
strange, although I know it's not "Tomas" in German. But I felt I should check.
I typed in Tonio Kroger (pretty sure there should be an umlaut over the "o,"
but forget that). I got only English sites, so to be sure, I typed in "Tod in
Venedig" (Death in Venice).
Who needs this?
Believe me, people were just happy you passed on a nice quote. The provenance
was not that important. But you ever find out for sure who wrote it . . . .
CalvinoSvevo2000
A.Word.A.Day newsletter. Maybe it's very well known, I have no idea.
Yesterday's word: "oleaginous."
Yesterday's quote: "Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to
their capacity for experience."
--George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
To subscribe:
http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/subscribe.html
MC
calvinos...@aol.com (CalvinoSvevo2000) wrote:
> This is not a correction either. The first time I heard that quote it was
> attributed to Chekhov. Definitely Chekhov.
>
> Whoever the author, he knew what he was talking about. It's one of the wisest
> observations about writing I've ever come across. :-)
"Whoever the author"?
Trust me!
It was Blaise Pascal:
I have only made this [letter] longer because I have not had the time to
make it shorter.
Blaise Pascal (1623-62), French scientist, philosopher. Lettres
Provinciales, Letter 16 (1657).
The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations
CalvinoSvevo2000
read that Cicero said it. And other writers have said similar things.
So, "Whoever wrote it . . . " is still what I'd go with.
Everything below the line comes from a site I found.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.nogoop.com/mt/archives/cat_miscellaneous.html
"I did not have time to write a short one..."
I was using this quote on another post to my blog:
"I have written you a long letter because I did not have time to write a short
one."
And I was trying to figure out who said it. So in my google searching, I found
a couple of references to the quote being used without any attribution. I also
found it attributed to Blaise Pascal, George Bernard Shaw, Henry David Thoreau,
and Samuel Clemens.
Well Thoreau wrote something similar, but not the real quote:
"Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it
short."
Seems that the winner is Pascal. ***But wait it's not that simple. May go back
even further.***
People should try to be more careful about quoting sayings without checking
them out, especially on the internet, when quite a lot of what you read can be
junk. I could spend more time with this entry, but other fish seek frying.
MC
calvinos...@aol.com (CalvinoSvevo2000) wrote:
> I've seen the folowing kind of disclaimer about Pascal more than once. I've
> read that Cicero said it.
And now, so have I -- and so has everyone else who's reading this.
But at least I can provide a *citation* for Pascal.
> And other writers have said similar things.
Indeed thay have.
>
> So, "Whoever wrote it . . . " is still what I'd go with.
Fine by me.
Pascal is what I'll go with -- until I see an earlier citation.
CalvinoSvevo2000
Fine by me, too. Wasn't trying to persuade; was merely explaining my response
of "Whoever . . . ."
Brian Christgau
news:Xns945B7D096A1B5...@130.133.1.4...
> "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for
> other people."
> -- Thomas Mann
>
> Reminds me of the oft-quoted phrase from either Mark Twain or Winston
> Churchill or somebody apologizing for the length of a letter because he
> didn't have time to write a shorter one.
And that in turn reminds me of a favorite quote from Buck Henry:
"I hate writing. I love having written."
For me, writing is sometimes a joy, sometimes a chore. It all depends on
the project and my mood at the time. If I'm enthusiastic and in the "zone",
everything flows smoothly and I have a joyous time in the world of my story
and its characters. If I'm feeling "creatively constipated", however,
squeezing out half a page is a Herculean task.
Then there's the mood of the project itself. One of the my best and most
satisfying scripts dealt with a group of terminally ill children, so the
rather depressing subject matter meant being in pretty down mood most of the
time I was working on it. After on working on something heavy and downbeat,
I usually make sure my next project is one of my wild and anarchic hybrids
(i.e. a Western Horror script).
And then there's comic book scripts, a monumentally ball-breaking task
and (as Harlan Ellison, Sam Hamm and others who have worked in numerous
mediums can attest) the hardest kind of writing there is. Even when I feel
passionate about the story and it's pretty much telling itself,
there's something about spinning a yarn in still pictures that I still have
yet to get completely used to.
Cheers,
B
MC
"Brian Christgau" <ra...@NOFRIGGINSPAMpipeline.com> wrote:
> And then there's comic book scripts, a monumentally ball-breaking task
> and (as Harlan Ellison, Sam Hamm and others who have worked in numerous
> mediums can attest) the hardest kind of writing there is. Even when I feel
> passionate about the story and it's pretty much telling itself,
> there's something about spinning a yarn in still pictures that I still have
> yet to get completely used to.
Maybe so, but it's highly applicable to screenwriting. Amongst the good
advice that Syd Field dispenses he points out that a screenplay is a
"story told in pictures" -- I can't draw worth a damn but I think a
comic book is an excellent way to think of your outline, and the best of
them (I guess we have to call them "graphic novels" these days) are well
worth picking up to get clues about how to approach scripts.
Brian Christgau
"MC" <cop...@AMZAPca.inter.net> wrote in message
news:copeSP-D8CCD6....@mail.inter.net...
The two mediums (film and comics) are closely related, but screenplays
are about *movement* whereas comics are about frozen moments or still shots.
True, you can create the illusion of movement in a series of panels
(including slow zooms and pans), but ultimately you're describing a snapshot
instead of something that is in the process of happening.
As for the term "graphic novel" (one that always makes me wince), I
personally can't stand it because so few of them are "novels" in terms of
length and structure (a notable exception being Alan Moore's brilliant
"Watchmen"). It was pretty much created in an attempt to give comics
(undeniably the most despised of all art forms) an air of mainstream
legitimacy when the industry was on the upswing. Now that the industry is
pretty much been set back where it was during the 70's, the term "trade
paperback" appears to have gained some favor.
Cheers,
B
MC
"Brian Christgau" <ra...@NOFRIGGINSPAMpipeline.com> wrote:
> > Maybe so, but it's highly applicable to screenwriting. Amongst the good
> > advice that Syd Field dispenses he points out that a screenplay is a
> > "story told in pictures" -- I can't draw worth a damn but I think a
> > comic book is an excellent way to think of your outline, and the best of
> > them (I guess we have to call them "graphic novels" these days) are well
> > worth picking up to get clues about how to approach scripts.
>
> The two mediums (film and comics) are closely related, but screenplays
> are about *movement* whereas comics are about frozen moments or still shots.
> True, you can create the illusion of movement in a series of panels
> (including slow zooms and pans), but ultimately you're describing a snapshot
> instead of something that is in the process of happening.
And yet a script often gets rendered into a storyboard -- aka a comic
book. In the end these things (including the script) are just tools
intended to help the reader visualize the finished moving pictures.