“The higher processes are all processes of simplification. The novelist must learn to write, and then he must unlearn it; just as the modern painter learns to draw, and then learns when utterly to disregard his accomplishment, when to subordinate it to a higher and truer effect.”

—  Willa Cather

"The Novel Démeublé"
Not Under Forty (1936)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The higher processes are all processes of simplification. The novelist must learn to write, and then he must unlearn it…" by Willa Cather?
Willa Cather photo
Willa Cather 99
American writer and novelist 1873–1947

Related quotes

Viktor Schauberger photo

“You must learn to think one octave higher. Only then will you learn how implosion energy works.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Implosion Magazine, No. 83, p. 27 (Callum Coats: Energy Evolution (2000))
Implosion Magazine

Diogenes Laërtius photo

“When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said, "Not to unlearn what you have learned."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Antisthenes, 4.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 6: The Cynics

Carl Hayden photo

“This man knows the legislative process as few others have learned them. He knows that legislation is compromise, he knows that there must be give and take, and he knows how legislative work is accomplished.”

Carl Hayden (1877–1972) American federal politician

Morris Udall
Johnson, James W. (2002). Arizona Politicians: The Noble and the Notorious, illustrations by David `Fitz' Fitzsimmons, Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp 155. ISBN 0-8165-2203-0.
About

Henry Adams photo

“Unity is vision; it must have been part of the process of learning to see.”

Henry Adams book The Education of Henry Adams

Source: The Education of Henry Adams

“Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.”

Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American motivational speaker
John Campbell Shairp photo

“There is perhaps no truer sign that a man is really advancing than that he is learning to forget himself, that he is losing the natural thoughts about self in the thought of One higher than himself, to whose guidance he can commit himself and all men.”

John Campbell Shairp (1819–1885) British writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 565.

“All the lessons learned, unlearned”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Fall of a City"
Selected Poems (1941)
Context: All the lessons learned, unlearned;
The young, who learned to read, now blind
Their eyes with an archaic film;
The peasant relapses to a stumbling tune
Following the donkey`s bray;
These only remember to forget. But somewhere some word presses
On the high door of a skull and in some corner
Of an irrefrangible eye
Some old man memory jumps to a child
— Spark from the days of energy.
And the child hoards it like a bitter toy.

“When a man learns to love, he must bear the risk of hatred.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Variant: The moment people come to know love, they run the risk of carrying hate.

“Constructive process is a process of development and learning is a process of reconstruction of nature.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Learning

Rudyard Kipling photo

“You must learn to forgive a man when he's in love. He's always a nuisance.”

Rudyard Kipling book The Light That Failed

Source: The Light That Failed

Related topics