Literature and Words

You’re 2 walking by the tomb of Battiades, Who knew well how to write poetry, and enjoy Laughter at the right moment, over the wine.

Oh, if I had Orpheus’ voice and poetry with which to move the Dark Maid and her Lord, I’d call you back, dear love, from the world below. I’d go down there for you. Charon or the grim King’s dog could not prevent me then from carrying you up into the fields of light.

I N THE AFTERNOONS , Gertrude Stein and I used to go antique hunting in the local shops, and I remember once asking her if she thought I should become a writer. In the typically cryptic way we were all so enchanted with, she said, “No.” I took that to mean yes and sailed for Italy the next day.

There is no advice to give young poets.

Don’t ever write anything you don’t like yourself and if you do like it, don’t take anyone else’s advice about changing it. They just don’t know.

Ignore it: you never stop speaking; why stop writing?

I don’t think that writer’s block exists really. I think that when you’re trying to do something prematurely, it just won’t come. Certain subjects just need time.… You’ve got to wait before you write about them.

My prescription for writer’s block is to face the fact that there is no such thing. It’s an invented condition, a literary version of the judicial “abuse excuse.” Writing well is difficult, but one can always write something . And then, with a lot of work, make it better. It’s a question of having enough will and ambition, not of hoping to evade this mysterious hysteria people are always talking about.

When I sit down in order to write, sometimes it’s there; sometimes it’s not. But that doesn’t bother me anymore. I tell my students there is such a thing as “writer’s block,” and they should respect it. You shouldn’t write through it. It’s blocked because it ought to be blocked, because you haven’t got it right now.

The best regimen is to get up early, insult yourself a bit in the shaving mirror, and then pretend you’re cutting wood.

If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn’t expecting it.

Very few authors are able to do actual writing for more than three hours a day. In fact, a good many very successful ones average no more than an hour.

Now this is very important and can hardly be emphasized too strongly: You have decided to write at four o’clock, and at four o’clock write you must!

Write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you are writing, and aren’t writing particularly well.

A word once let out of the cage cannot be whistled back again.

Our words must seem to be inevitable.

Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.

I never write metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city . I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop .

Words: the pieces of change in the currency of a sentence. They must not get in the way. There is always too much small change.

Word-carpentry is like any other kind of carpentry: you must join your sentences smoothly.

Words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity.

At a reading in 1968, the poet Marianne Moore solicited questions from the audience and someone asked, “What words of advice, if any, would you give to a beginning poet who hates words?” The 81-year-old Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner pondered for a moment and then replied, “That may be very auspicious. Words are a very great trap.” Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to.

Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium.

Exercise your words. Try them out in new relationships.