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writercisesOriginal Posting: Tue, 4 May 1993 18:32:01 JST
"To write with taste, in the highest sense, is to write with the assumption that one out of a hundred people who read one's work may be dying, or have some loved one dying; to write so that no one commits suicide, no one despairs; to write, as Shakespeare wrote, so that people understand, sympathize, see the universality of pain, and feel strengthened, if not directly encouraged to live on."
...
"...every writer should be aware that he might be read by the desperate, by people who might be persuaded toward life or death."
From "The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers" by John Gardner (Random House, 1991) p. 201.
(I wonder if Gardner talked in epigrams?)
"To write with taste, in the highest sense, is to write with the assumption that one out of a hundred people who read one's work may be dying, or have some loved one dying; to write so that no one commits suicide, no one despairs; to write, as Shakespeare wrote, so that people understand, sympathize, see the universality of pain, and feel strengthened, if not directly encouraged to live on."
...
"...every writer should be aware that he might be read by the desperate, by people who might be persuaded toward life or death."
From "The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers" by John Gardner (Random House, 1991) p. 201.
(I wonder if Gardner talked in epigrams?)
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