From Finding the Center to Reading and Writing: A Personal Account, the story remains the same: in a journey unique to myself, I left my worthless home, with its small people, and I sailed against the tides of chance and history looking for a better place -- for the center -- where I suffered greatly and made myself into a great writer.
No matter how tight the shot is, if I'm narrating it too much, there's a barrier between you and the experience, because the process of reading a book, or watching a movie, or watching a play is that you're watching a dream.
I'm writing a movie about Mozart going to New York in the '60s. I've been reading so many novels.
By reading the characteristic features of any man's castles in the air you can make a shrewd guess as to his underlying desires which are frustrated.
I think reading is part of the birthright of the human being
A library is a place where you learn what teachers were afraid to teach you.
When I'm not writing music, I'm playing guitar, or reading philosophy. So all I have left is just an hour or two for Claudia Schiffer.
I've heard a lot of great success stories from writers - how so many of them struggled to get where they are and how persistence pays off. I learned that some writers are good at doing readings and some are not so good at it.
A man's reading program should be as carefully planned as his daily diet, for that too is food, without which he cannot grow mentally.
If the book is second-hand, I leave all its markings intact, the spoor of previous readers, fellow-travellers who have recorded their passage by means of scribbled comments, a name on the fly-leaf, a bus ticket to mark a certain page.
We are born and we die; and between these two most important events in our lives more or less time elapses which we have to waste somehow or other. In the end it does not seem to matter much whether we have done so in making money, or practicing law, or reading or playing, or in any other way, as long as we felt we were deriving a maximum of happiness out of our doings.
I'd sit at my kitchen table and start scanning help-wanted ads on my laptop, but then a browser tab would blink and I'd get distracted and follow a link to a long magazine article about genetically modified wine grapes. Too long, actually, so I'd add it to my reading list. Then I'd follow another link to a book review. I'd add the review to my reading list, too, then download the first chapter of the book—third in a series about vampire police. Then, help-wanted ads forgotten, I'd retreat to the living room, put my laptop on my belly, and read all day. I had a lot of free time.
Now, I do say, "It's possible. You might be the first. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the odds are very much against you. " All great poets have been great readers and the way to learn your craft in poetry is by reading other poetry and by letting it guide you.
A library takes the gift of reading one step further by offering personalized learning opportunities second to none, a powerful antidote to the isolation of the Web.
My mom was in education, and I remember reading in one of her books about multiple intelligences - this whole theory about how there are all these different ways you can be intelligent, like eight or 10 of them or something. And one of them is emotional.
Found one of my old journals. from right around the time we were heading out on tour with NFG in the UK early 2008. i started reading it and couldn't help but cry a little bit. cause that person was really confused. and very lost. and as it went on, the person behind the pen seemed to get a little bit stronger. . that part felt good. it was the reminder that i needed that right now i'm as strong as ever. there really isn't a point to telling you all of this. except maybe i want to thank you. cause you are a constant reminder. that i'm not as lost as i once was.
I feel guilty if I'm not reading books, but I read scripts of movies or things that I know I'm committed to that I'm going to do the project. I tell myself, "I'm going to read this script like six times," and I only read it the initial time.
I wish thee as much pleasure in the reading, as I had in the writing.
But, yes, I learned everything working in theater. I learned the importance of community - I was constantly going to play readings, stand-up nights, improv. nights.
Reading the very best writers—let us say Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Tolstoy—is not going to make us better citizens. Art is perfectly useless, according to the sublime Oscar Wilde, who was right about everything. He also told us that all bad poetry is sincere. Had I the power to do so, I would command that these words be engraved above every gate at every university, so that each student might ponder the splendor of the insight.
