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"One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple."
- Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums (via thatkindofwoman)(Source: winedarkseas, via thatkindofwoman)
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"I’m a wretch. But I love, love."
- Jack Kerouac (via thatkindofwoman)(Source: likeafieldmouse, via thatkindofwoman)
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The Tyee – The 10 Most Harmful Novels for Aspiring Writers
Any young person who wants to be a novelist should of course be a reader as well. But some novels can be more hazard than inspiration. They are often well-written, but their effects have generally been disastrous: they inspired younger writers to imitate them, they created awful new genres that debased readers’ tastes, or they promoted literary or social values that we could very much do without.
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High Resolution -
The Power of Simple Words
1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”
4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”
5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”—
C. S. Lewis on writing, joining other sage writing advice from Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Wilder, Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, and David Ogilvy.
More on the power of simple words.
Yes, yes, a million times yes.
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Jack Kerouac's List of 30 Beliefs and Techniques for Prose and Life | Brain Pickings
- Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
- Submissive to everything, open, listening
- Try never get drunk outside yr own house
- Be in love with yr life
- Something that you feel will find its own form
- Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
- Blow as deep as you want to blow
- Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
- The unspeakable visions of the individual
- No time for poetry but exactly what is
- Visionary tics shivering in the chest
- In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
- Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
- Like Proust be an old teahead of time
- Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
- The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
- Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
- Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
- Accept loss forever
- Believe in the holy contour of life
- Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
- Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
- Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
- No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
- Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
- Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
- In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
- Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
- You’re a Genius all the time
- Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
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High ResolutionFlavorwire » The Best Life Advice from Jack Kerouac
Some of my favorites:
“Forgive everyone for your own sins and be sure to tell them you love them which you do.”
“The truth of the matter is, you die, all you do is die, and yet you live, yes you live, and that’s no Harvard lie.”
“The beauty of things must be that they end.” — Tristessa
“The road must eventually lead to the whole world.” — On the Road
“All is well, practice kindness, heaven is nigh.” — Visions of Gerard
“So long and take it easy, because if you start taking things seriously, it is the end of you.” — Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings
“…we all must admit that everything is fine and there’s no need in the world to worry, and in fact we should realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we’re not REALLY worried about ANYTHING.” – The Dharma Bums
“The best teacher is experience and not through someone’s distorted point of view.” — On the Road
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"Be in love with your life. Every detail of it."
- Jack Kerouac (via silverslipper)(via thenewyorkan)
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"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…"
- Jack Kerouac (via farebellafigura)(Source: human-voices, via taaylow)
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"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."
- Jack Keruoac (via vineetkaur, hhemmeger) -
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"Be in love with your life. Every detail of it."
- Jack Kerouac (via thatkindofwoman)(Source: longlivejava, via thatkindofwoman)
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"the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘awwww!’"
- Jack Kerouac (via geales)
Favorite Things
Twenty-something.
Atlanta.
Hedonist.
The views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views of my employers. No one should be held responsible for my stupid thoughts.
