A Secret Garden for Writers and Readers
by Bruce Emerson

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Attributed to PicassoWhen art critics get together they talk about content, style, trend and meaning, but that when painters get together they talk about where can you get the best turpentine.
And so it is with writers: When they gather, they do not discuss literary theory, they discuss the mechanics of writing.
Attributed to MichelangeloArt is never finished, only abandoned.
Many times writers wished they had written a provision differently.
Christopher HitchensThe one unforgivable sin is to be boring.
A thought that writers should often reference.
attributed to Mark TwainNever let the truth get in the way of a good story.
There is much to be said for this.
Samuel JohnsonNo man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
And all writers try to avoid being blockheads.
Alexander PopeWhat oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d
When despairing of writing new ideas, recall there is great merit in writing an old thought well.
yours trulyProse is simply bad poetry.
Truly, I am not usually this cynical. Still, it indicates that good prose has a bit of poetry woven into it.
Earnest HemmingwayThe writer’s job is not to judge, but to seek to understand.
This applies to characters and sometimes to events.
Pablo PicassoArt is a lie that makes us realize truth….
What we write is artifice, a story with selected elements, not actual life.
yours trulyWe are all unreliable narrators.
When we tell stories about ourselves or others, we omit, embellish and forget.