Man knows, and in the course of years he comes to know it increasingly well, feeling it ever more acutely, that memory is weak and fleeting, and if he doesn't write down what he has learned and experienced, that which he carries within him will perish when he does. This is when it seems everyone wants to write a book. Singers and football players, politicians and millionaires. And if they themselves do not know how, or else lack the time, they commission someone else to do it for them..engendering this reality is the impression of writing as a simple pursuit, though those who subscribe to that view might do well to ponder Thomas Mann's observation that, 'a writer is a man for whom writing is more difficult than it is for others.Anonymous
About This Quote
Thomas Mann, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, said that "many a man has lost his soul through too much self-consciousness and a failure to see that words are a way of expressing a thought, not a new thought." The quote above does not say that writers should write as quickly as they can. Instead, it speaks to the fact that writers should write something worthwhile. In order to write something worthwhile, you have to be able to see your writing as an expression of your ideas rather than as a means of showing off your cleverness.
Source: Travels With Herodotus
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