Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 6 : On the Limits of Creativity, p. 119
Context: When you write a poem, you discover that the very necessity of fitting your meaning into such and such a form requires you to search in your imagination for new meanings. You reject certain ways of saying it; you select others, always trying to form the poem again. In your forming, you arrive at new and more profound meanings than you had even dreamed of. Form is not a mere lopping off of meaning that you don't have room to put into your poem; it is an aid to finding new meaning, a stimulus to condensing your meaning, to simplifying and purifying it, and to discovering on a more universal dimension the essence you wish to express.
“To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters. Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.”
Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
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Terry Tempest Williams 30
American writer 1955Related quotes
“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”
“The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe.”
A Map of the World (1982), cited from Carol Homden, The Plays of David Hare (1995), p. 124.
A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work