Art Beat: painting in a cave

Hi, my name is Jacob Mann. I cover the Night Beat for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

Stories start in many different ways and leave people with different views. They can be fiction, non-fiction, or sometimes, in the weird meta-verse we continue to find ourselves in, somewhere in between.

In honor of the wonder of words, here’s a roundup of some grade-A quality quotes about writing, writers, and the weight of words for scribes and non-literary types alike.

“The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.” – William H. Gass

“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” – Anne Lamott

“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” – Dr. Seuss

“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.” – Willa Cather

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” – Sylvia Plath

“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.” – Ray Bradbury

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ― Anais Nin

“Now I’m hunched over a typewriter. I guess you’d call that paintin’ in a cave.

And there’s a word I can’t remember, and a feeling I cannot escape…” ― Conor Oberst

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com