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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.
-Joseph Epstein
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I Was Recently Asked What It Takes

Joseph Epstein
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.
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Now, everybody knows the basic erogenous zones. you got one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. ... ok, now most guys will hit one, two, three and then go to seven and set up camp. ... you want to hit 'em all and you wanna mix 'em up. you gotta keep 'em on their toes. ... you could start out with a little one. a two. a one, two, three. a three. a five. a four. a three, two. two. a two, four, six. two, four, six. four. two. two. four, seven! five, seven! six, seven! seven! seven! seven! seven! seven! seven! seven! seven! seven! [holds up seven fingers]
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I asked myself, 'how are you going to change all these people, they have different values, different customs, different language, different interpretations?' so that’s the time i joined the ku klux klan in miami. the reason i joined is to see if i could change them. so i dissolved that organization in a month-and-a-half, alone. [applause] then i joined the white citizen council. the wcc hates foreigners – all foreigners. so i joined that organization; i dissolved it in one month.
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The truth we have to face about the world we live in is that it's driven by profit, and contradictions and doubts are not profitable. they yield wisdom, but wisdom is not profitable. i find pleasure in doubt, but let's face it, my pleasure is not very profitable. to me, the truth is that things mean many things at once, and all of them opposed to each other, and all of them true.
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In my dreams is a country where the state is the church and the church the people: three in one and one in three. it is a commonwealth in which work is play and play is life: three in one and one in three. it is a temple in which the priest is the worshiper and the worshiper the worshipped: three in one and one in three. it is a godhead in which all life is human and all humanity divine: three in one and one in three.
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As every writer knows... there is something mysterious about the writer's ability, on any given day, to write. when the juices are flowing, or the writer is 'hot', an invisible wall seems to fall away, and the writer moves easily and surely from one kind of reality to another... every writer has experienced at least moments of this strange, magical state. reading student fiction one can spot at once where the power turns on and where it turns off, where the writer writes from 'inspiration' or deep, flowing vision, and where he had to struggle along on mere intellect.
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The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. the second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. the third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made.
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