“I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.”

— Nikki Giovanni

Last update April 1, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write…" by Nikki Giovanni?

Nikki Giovanni 23

American writer and academic 1943

Related quotes

“Writers don't write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don't…. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

“If I get it, no one will ever know to what heights I might have gone as a writer. Maybe if you wrote about the promise that was there, all wouldn't be lost.”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

Letter to his brother Jeff from Guadalcanal (28 January 1943); p. 28
To Reach Eternity (1989)
Context: I'm going to ask you something. If I do get killed, and I honestly don't see how I can help it, I want you to write that book we were thinking about when I enlisted. If I get it, it's a cinch I won't be able to do it, and it would make me feel a whole lot better to know that if not my name and hand, at least, the thot of me would be passed on and not forgotten entirely. You know, sort of put into the book the promise that I had and the things I might have written so at least the knowledge of talent wasted won't be lost... If I get it, no one will ever know to what heights I might have gone as a writer. Maybe if you wrote about the promise that was there, all wouldn't be lost.

“Maybe there is something I got from it. Maybe you also start to be clear on certain things.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei: 'Every day I think, this will be the day I get taken in again...', 2011

“I think empathy is not learned. Maybe I’m wrong, but in my experience it’s not.”

Nanfu Wang (1985) director and filmmaker

Source: "Interview with “In the Same Breath” Director Nanfu Wang" in Film Festival Today https://filmfestivaltoday.com/interviews/interview-with-in-the-same-breath-director-nanfu-wang (23 August 2021)

“What did it matter to me? Did I think that by making you rational about one thing, I could make you rational about everything? Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to save you from your fears”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

“I don't want to be a writer so I can write about my life. I want to be a writer to escape from it.

+ Then you shouldn't be a writer.”

Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries

Source: The Carrie Diaries

“I was starting to see that what looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe it did take a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Variant: What looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe ittake a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.
Source: Handle with Care