m. c. de marco

Here are a few quotes from Joseph Epstein. The first two are from “Writing on the Brain,” a review of The Midnight Disease by Alice W. Flaherty published in Commentary, April 2004:

I was recently asked what it takes to become a writer. Three things, I answered: first, one must cultivate incompetence at almost every other form of profitable work. This must be accompanied, second, by a haughty contempt for all the forms of work that one has established one cannot do. To these two must be joined, third, the nuttiness to believe that other people can be made to care about your opinions and views and be charmed by the way you state them. Incompetence, contempt, lunacy—-once you have these in place, you are set to go.

Since I haven’t had time to provide content lately, I’ve decided to add a category for quotations about writing. I’ll open with an anti-procrastination quote from Goethe:

Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days … What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe