Zadie Smith
‘Solitary intimacy of reading and writing.’
October 4, 2016
“Learning how to be a good reader is what makes you a writer,” Zadie Smith.
More genuine and brilliant synthesis from Maria Popover and Rebecca Solnit.
“Writing is saying to no one and to everyone the things it is not possible to say to someone. Or rather writing is saying to the no one who may eventually be the reader those things one has no someone to whom to say them. Matters that are so subtle, so personal, so obscure that I ordinarily can’t imagine saying them to the people to whom I’m closest. Every once in a while I try to say them aloud and find that what turns to mush in my mouth or falls short of their ears can be written down for total strangers. Said to total strangers in the silence of writing that is recuperated and heard in the solitude of reading. Is it the shared solitude of writing, is it that separately we all reside in a place deeper than society, even the society of two? Is it that the tongue fails where the fingers succeed, in telling truths so lengthy and nuanced that they are almost impossible aloud?”
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/13/rebecca-solnit-faraway-nearby-reading-writing/