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quotes from history

Snatching Mouldy Dead Memories Out Of Their Graves: Idiosyncratic Thoughts On Writing Intellectual History For The Masses

Like many of you I am constantly on the lookout for thoughtful writing advice. With that in mind, Andrew Delbanco’s recent review of the Autobiography of Mark Twain includes this provocative passage: ————————————-It [the following quote] will doubtless strike some readers as incoherent. And so it is—in just the way that Twain thought good writing should be. “To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way,” he wrote in an 1895 essay, “How to Tell a Story,” was the basis of his art. In the title of that little manifesto, he used the word “tell” instead Read more