Monday, February 07, 2005

I'm not doodling, I'm outlining.

From BlackBelt Jones, a great quote from Phillip Pullman, writer of His Dark Materials trilogy. Bolding by Jones:

"...when we do this foolish, time-consuming, romantic, quixotic, childlike thing called play that we are most practical, most useful, and most firmly grounded in reality, because the world itself is the most unlikely of places, and it works in the oddest of ways, and we won't make any sense of it by doing what everybody else has done before us. It's when we fool about with the stuff the world is made of that we make the most valuable discoveries, we create the most lasting beauty, we discover the most profound truths. The youngest children can do it, and the greatest artists, the greatest scientists do it all the time. Everything else is proofreading."

Everything else is proofreading. Dammmnnnnn.

4 comments:

david golbitz said...

That's an awesome quote. I'm gonna thief that for my site, I think.

Still waiting for your Transformers notes, John? And if so, what does a screenwriter do in this downtime, while waiting for executives to pick apart what you wrote before telling you to redo it?

Anonymous said...

this reminds me of the henry rollins quote about the bum he used to hand out with. one day he foudn the bum, just getting sober and found out he used ot be somebody, and he had settled with a wife and a job. (wording is my own, i dont recall exactly what went on in the story) sufice to say, the bum ends up saying all he ever wanted to be was a dancer, does a little two step and says "but i could never get the shit off my shoes." which in turn blew me away as if proofreading would. for anyone who wants the actualy story, check out henry rollins "human butt" spoken word.

SDM said...

I like that quote... kind of puts things in perspective.

Pullman is an interesting guy, too. Heck of a writer, but I also feel like he killed the Dark Materials by putting the message in front of what was a really terrific storyline(and I have a kneejerk reaction to fantasy series that cross to "our world", the blame for which rests on the shoulders of Masters of the Universe). Has he been up to anything since HDM?

каркасные дома said...

The guy is totally just, and there is no doubt.

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