Day 4: Writers craft words into memorable phrases, stories, poems, and plays. What writers make your heart sing? Why?
Just a few, pulled out of my immediate memory as if from a hat, for the sake of brevity.
Helene Hanff, author of 84 Charing Cross Road, because her memorable exchange of letters with a bookseller in London, from her apartment in New York, celebrate the power of words, of books, and of the human connection that both can make possible.
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I will also give credit to many film script writers, because I often come across a line in a movie that I will listen to over and over until I can copy the quote correctly and save it for later inspiration.
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William James, (in the form of a quotation I found on a tea box), offered these words that continue to renew my enthusiasm and hope when I feel like I’ll never achieve my goals: “Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.”
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The poet Dorianne Laux, who was one of my classmates at Mills College. I will sheepishly admit I didn’t think she was so special at the time we sat at the same table reading our work out loud, but now her poems are in books, and she has even co-written a book on writing poetry.
She showed me that real people really can write something other people, including me, want to read.
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Alexander McCall Smith, a Scottish man who writes insightful, joyful novels about a woman in Botswana. These stories are clean and positive – no profanity, no racy plot lines – and yet they show that none of that is necessary to make a book fascinating and compelling.
They are fun and extremely readable, and provide portraits of real people living real life with grace, humor, and decency. And at the same time, they ponder big issues, and in each novel I find myself with new words to look up. A rare combination of decency, optimism, intelligence, and a reader friendly style.
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And of course Charlotte Bronte, a poor, powerless governess with great mental powers, who wrote about a similar poor, powerless governess whose strength of character, sense of self, and unquenchable hope and affection, led her to conquer a series of circumstances that could have crushed someone much stronger than she appeared.
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The psalmist David, who poured out his heart to God, whether in times of intense trial or those of joy and triumph. At times he showed great faith. At other times his actions were deeply flawed. But always he maintained his faith in God, his expansive love, and his desire to please him.
The songs, or poetry, that he wrote convey deep feeling, lasting faith, and the strength that originates beyond our flawed selves. They really do sing to us, as timeless poetry is able to do.
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I think that of all that writers give us, these two gifts are among the greatest.
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A view into a different place, time, perspective, and way of life.
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The gift of feeling that we are not alone. Even if we find ourselves with no one of like mind around us, when we read the writer reaches a hand across to us and reminds us that someone else does think and feel and experience life the way we do.