The Black Prince Literature and Writing Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)

Quote #1

I am a writer. 'A writer' is indeed the simplest also the most accurate general description of me. In so far as I am also a psychologist, an amateur philosopher, a student of human affairs, I am so because these things are a part of being the kind of writer that I am. I have always been a seeker. And my seeking has taken the form of that attempt to tell truth of which I have just spoken. (Bradley Pearson's Foreword: par. 2)

In Bradley Pearson's point of view, literature isn't truly artistic unless it speaks the truth. True art is truthful, he argues, and if a person's writing doesn't speak the truth, then it isn't really art at all.

Quote #2

I have, I hope and I believe, kept my gift pure. This means, among other things, that I have never been a successful writer. I have never tried to please at the expense of truth. I have known, for long periods, the torture of a life without self-expression. The most potent and sacred command which can be laid upon any artist is the command: wait. Art has its martyrs, not least those who have preserved their silence. (Bradley Pearson's Foreword: par. 2)

In addition to speaking the truth, Bradley Pearson also believes that art is a form of self-expression. Among other things, this little tidbit helps to align Bradley's narrative with Shakespeare's Hamlet, as Hamlet is—in Bradley's point of view—the one play in which Shakespeare expressed himself and represented himself most fully.

Quote #3

I often found that I had ideas for stories, but by the time I had thought them out in detail they seemed to me hardly worth writing, as if I had already 'done' them: not because they were bad, but because they already belonged to the past and I had lost interest. My thoughts were soon stale to me. Some things I ruined by starting them too soon. Others by thinking them so intensely in my head that they were over before they began. (Bradley Pearson's Foreword: par. 4)

Can Bradley Pearson really lay claim to being a writer if he doesn't do the hard work of actually committing words to paper?