Warsaw, Poland

School of Masters: Studies in Writing Techniques and Literary Text Presentation

Szkoła Mistrzów. Studia technik pisarskich oraz prezentacji tekstu literackiego

Table of contents

School of Masters: Studies in Writing Techniques and Literary Text Presentation at UW

Language: Polish Studies in Polish
Subject area: humanities
University website: en.uw.edu.pl

Definitions and quotes

Writing
Writing is a medium of human communication that represents language and emotion with signs and symbols. In most languages, writing is a complement to speech or spoken language. Writing is not a language, but a tool used to make languages be read. Within a language system, writing relies on many of the same structures as speech, such as vocabulary, grammar, and semantics, with the added dependency of a system of signs or symbols. The result of writing is called text, and the recipient of text is called a reader. Motivations for writing include publication, storytelling, correspondence, record keeping and diary. Writing has been instrumental in keeping history, maintaining culture, dissemination of knowledge through the media and the formation of legal systems.
Writing
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
Gospel of Thomas, in Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (2004), p. 37
Writing
The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.
John Steinbeck, New York Times (2 June 1969)
Writing
Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.
Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5 (1947-1955), February 1954, as quoted in Woman as Writer (1978), p. 38.
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