Dr. Seuss On Writing ~

Dr. Seuss as quoted by biographers* said, "English and writing was my major, but I think that's a mistake.  That's teaching you the mechanics of getting water out of a well that may not exist."

In The Joy of Books, Eric Burns writes, "[The writer] must be indiscriminate, willing to do almost anything for experience;  he must be selective, unwilling to repeat himself for the sake of ease or compromise himself for the sake of novelty....
"The writer, though, cannot rely solely on his own experience, as it makes up too limited a domain.  He is but one person, and humanity a multitude of shared traits, conflicting values and radically differing perspectives.  The writer needs a broader vantage point than his own resources can provide, one that embraces people and places and practices which would otherwise be alien to him.

"Commenting on the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Will Durant writes, 'Since any man's experience can be no more than a microscopic fragment of reality, Leonardo supplemented his with reading, which can be experience by proxy.' "
~ The Joy of Books, Confessions of a Lifelong Reader, Prometheus Books, 1995.

* Judith & Neil Morgan.