Verlyn Klinkenborg QUOTES

1 " I look at the books on my library shelves. They certainly seem dormant. But what if the characters are quietly rearranging themselves? What if Emma Woodhouse doesn’t learn from her mistakes? What if Tom Jones descends into a sodden life of poaching and outlawry? What if Eve resists Satan, remembering God’s injunction and Adam’s loving advice? I imagine all the characters bustling to get back into their places as they feel me taking the book down from the shelf. “Hurry,” they say, “he’ll expect to find us exactly where he left us, never mind how much his life has changed in the meantime. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg

2 " Flow is something the reader experiences, not the writer. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg

3 " How these humans dispose themselves! Unlike anything else in creation. Or rather like everything else in creation all at once. Legs of one beast. Arms of another. Proportions all awry to a tortoise's eye. Torso too squat. Too little neck. Vastly too much leg. Hands like creatures unto themselves. Senses delicately balanced. And yet each sense dulled by mental acuity. Reason in place of a good nose. Logic instead of a tail. Faith instead of the certain knowledge of instinct. Superstition instead of a shell. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile

4 " (Home is) a place we carry inside ourselves, a place where we welcome the unfamiliar because we know that as time passes it will become the very bedrock of our being. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , The Rural Life

5 " With luck, you were read aloud to as a child. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

6 " Without extraneous words or phrases or clauses, there will be room for implication. The longer the sentence, the less it’s able to imply, And writing by implication should be one of your goals. Implication is almost nonexistent in the prose that surrounds you, The prose of law, science, business, journalism, and most academic fields. It was nonexistent in the way you were taught to write. That means you don’t know how to use one of a writer’s most important tools: The ability to suggest more than the words seem to allow, The ability to speak to the reader in silence. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

7 " There’s another trouble with meaning. We’ve been taught to believe it comes near the end. As if the job of all those sentences were to ferry us along to the place where meaning is enacted—to “the point,” Just before the conclusion, Which restates “the point.” This is especially true in the school model of writing. Remember the papers you wrote? Trying to save that one good idea till the very end? Hoping to create the illusion that it followed logically from the previous paragraphs? You were stalling until you had ten pages. Much of what’s taught under the name of expository writing could be called “The Anxiety of Sequence.” Its premise is this: To get where you’re going, you have to begin in just the right place And take the proper path, Which depends on knowing where you plan to conclude. This is like not knowing where to begin a journey Until you decide where you want it to end. Begin in the wrong place, make the wrong turn, And there’s no getting where you want to go. Why not begin where you already are? "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

8 " A cliché is dead matter. It causes gangrene in the prose around it, and sooner or later it eats your brain. You can’t fix a cliché by using it ironically. You can’t make it less gangrenous by appearing to “quote” it or invert it or joke about it. A cliché isn’t just a familiar, overused saying. It’s the debris of someone else’s thinking, Any group of words that seem to cluster together “naturally” And enlist in your sentence. The only thing to do with a cliché is send it to the sports page Or the speechwriters, where it will live forever. Volunteer "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

9 " Volunteer sentences are the relics of your education And the desire to emulate the grown-up, workaday prose that surrounds you, Which is made overwhelmingly of sentences that are banal and structurally thoughtless. A volunteer sentence is almost always a perfunctory sentence. That can change. But only after years of questioning the shapes of sentences you read, And every sentence you write. Don’t let the word “years” alarm you. Think of it as months and months and months and months. You may think a volunteer sentence is an inspired one Simply because it volunteers. This is one reason to abandon the idea of inspiration. All the idea of inspiration will do Is stop you from revising a volunteer sentence. Only revision will tell you whether a sentence that offers itself is worth keeping. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

10 " In school you learned to write as if the reader Were in constant danger of getting lost, A problem you were taught to solve not by writing clearly But by shackling your sentences and paragraphs together. Think about transitions. Remember how it goes? Late in the paragraph you prepare for the transition to the next paragraph— The great leap over the void, across that yawning indentation. You were taught the art of the flying trapeze, But not how to write. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

11 " Writing isn’t a conveyer belt bearing the reader to “the point” at the end of the piece, where the meaning will be revealed. Good writing is significant everywhere, Delightful everywhere. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

12 " Think of all the requirements writers imagine for themselves: A cabin in the woods A plain wooden table Absolute silence A favorite pen A favorite ink A favorite blank book A favorite typewriter A favorite laptop A favorite writing program A large advance A yellow pad A wastebasket A shotgun The early light of morning The moon at night A rainy afternoon A thunderstorm with high winds The first snow of winter A cup of coffee in just the right cup A beer A mug of green tea A bourbon Solitude Sooner or later the need for any one of these will prevent you from writing. Anything you think you need in order to write— Or be “inspired” to write or “get in the mood” to write— Becomes a prohibition when it’s lacking. Learn to write anywhere, at any time, in any conditions, With anything, starting from nowhere. All you really need is your head, the one indispensable "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

13 " There's always an assumption of selflessness in planting a tree. You're supposed to think, while digging the hole, how far into the future the tree will grow and what shallow, unconvincing weeds we humans are in comparison. Standing by the young sprout, you're supposed to wonder who will see this tree when it's full-grown, and you're bound in duty to consider the serenity of your own grave. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , More Scenes from the Rural Life

14 " In your head, you’ll probably find two models for writing. One is the familiar model taught in high school and college—a matter of outlines and drafts and transitions and topic sentences and argument. The other model is its antithesis—the way poets and novelists are often thought to write. Words used to describe this second model include “genius,” “inspiration,” “flow,” and “natural,” sometimes even “organic.” Both models are useless. I should qualify that sentence. Both models are completely useless. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

15 " Natural” is a word that invites suspicion. It should always present itself in quotation marks, A sign that its meaning is slippery. Humans can justify almost anything by calling it natural. Naturalness is the pervasive myth—the one to root out of your head. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

16 " But” is always preferable to “however,” Except in the rare cases where “however” is preferable to “but,” Which "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

17 " We forget something fundamental as we read:
Every sentence could have been otherwise but isn't.
We can't see all the decisions that led to the final shape of the sentence.
But we can see the residue of those decisions. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

18 " One purpose of writing—its central purpose—is to offer your testimony About the character of existence at this moment. It will be part of your job to say how things are, To attest to life as it is. This will feel strange at first. You’ll wonder whether you’re allowed to say things that sound Not merely observant but true, And not only true in carefully framed, limited circumstances, But true for all of us and, perhaps, for all time. Who asked you to say how things are? Where do you get the authority to do any of this? The answer is yours to find. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

19 " Imagine a reader you can trust. This sounds like a simple imperative. But the difference between writing for the reader implicit in your education And writing for one you trust is the difference between writing clumsily, Using all the grappling hooks of transition and false logic, And writing well, able to move briskly and freely, Going anywhere from anywhere almost instantly. All your life you’ve been reading books that trusted you, Trusted your intelligence, your keenness, Your ability to feel an invisible wink, To follow any trail, Even while you were learning in school not to trust the reader. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

20 " Without extraneous words or phrases or clauses, there will be room for implication. "

― Verlyn Klinkenborg , Several Short Sentences About Writing

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