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Donald Hall Quotes about Writing

All Donald Hall Quotes Baseball Son Writing quotes
Mere literary talent is common; what is rare is endurance, the continuing desire to work hard at writing.

Mere literary talent is common; what is rare is endurance, the continuing desire to work hard at writing.

Donald Hall
Hard Work, Writing, Desire

Work is style, and there is style without thought; not in theory, only in fact. When I take a sentence in my hand, raise it to the light, rub my hand across it, disjoin it, put it back together again with a comma added, raising the pitch in the front part; when I rub the grain of it, comb the fur of it, re-assemble the bones of it, I am making something that carries with it the sound of a voice, the firmness of a hand. Maybe little more.

Donald Hall
Writing, Light, Hands
Donald Hall (2004). “Breakfast Served Any Time All Day: Essays on Poetry New and Selected”, p.50, University of Michigan Press

To desire to write poems that endure-we undertake such a goal certain of two things: that in all likelihood we will fail, and if we succeed we will never know it

Donald Hall
Writing, Two, Goal
Donald Hall (1988). “Poetry and Ambition: Essays 1982-1988”

If our goal is to write poetry, the only way we are likely to be any good is to try to be as great as the best.

Donald Hall
Writing, Goal, Trying
Donald Hall (2004). “Breakfast Served Any Time All Day: Essays on Poetry New and Selected”, p.155, University of Michigan Press

Today when I begin writing I’m aware: something that I don’t understand drives this engine.

Donald Hall
Writing, Today, Engines
Donald Hall (1994). “Death to the death of poetry: essays, reviews, notes, interviews”, Univ of Michigan Pr

I want to sleep like the birds then wake to write you again without hope that you read me.

Donald Hall
Writing, Sleep, Bird
Donald Hall (2007). “White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006”, p.365, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I see no reason to spend your life writing poems unless your goal is to write great poems.

Donald Hall
Writing, Goal, Reason
Donald Hall (2004). “Breakfast Served Any Time All Day: Essays on Poetry New and Selected”, p.154, University of Michigan Press

Of course newspaper sportswriting is mostly terrible - and of course it is usually the best writing in the paper.

Donald Hall
Writing, Paper, Terrible

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