“Panicky despair is an underrated element of writing.”

— Dave Barry

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Dave Barry 121

American writer 1947

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“If you are wise, mingle these two elements: do not hope without despair, or despair without hope.”
Si sapis, alterum alteri misce: nec speraveris sine desperatione nec desperaveris sine spe.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Alternate translation: Hope not without despair, despair not without hope. (translated by Zachariah Rush).
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind, Line 12

“Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.”

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“There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.”

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Source: Hear the Wind Sing

“The second element in absolute faith is the dependence of the experience of nonbeing on the experience on being and the dependence of the experience of meaninglessness on the experience of meaning. even in the state of despair one has enough being to make despair possible.”

Paul Tillich book The Courage to Be

Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 177

“One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.”

Charles Simic (1938) American poet

Source: The Unemployed Fortune-Teller: Essays and Memoirs

“That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing.”

V.S. Naipaul (1932–2018) Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry

"Two Worlds," Nobel lecture (7 December 2001) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2001/naipaul-lecture-e.html
Context: I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true. It might seem strange that a man who has dealt in words and emotions and ideas for nearly fifty years shouldn't have a few to spare, so to speak. But everything of value about me is in my books. Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will — with luck — come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise. That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing.