
“You want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.”
Draft of a preface in “Notebook 16”; Quoted in The Collected Works of J.M. Synge, vol. 1, Introduction.
“You want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.”
Source: "Penn Badgley weighs in on the worst thing his 'Gossip Girl' character ever did" in TODAY https://www.today.com/popculture/penn-badgley-worst-thing-dan-humphrey-did-gossip-girl-t235509 (22 October 2021)
“A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.”
Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur, last stanza
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)
“If you would be a good reader, read; if a writer, write.”
Book II, ch. 18.
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And it's this incredibly intense process!
From the filmmaking documentary Dreams on Spec
“Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.”
“Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen
he will be good but
god knows When”
Manuscript poem, as a teenager (ca. 1824–1826) http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/prespoetry/al.html#1, in "Lincoln as Poet" at Library of Congress : Presidents as Poets http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/prespoetry/al.html also in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953) edited by Roy. P. Basler, Vol. 1
1820s