Literary Birthday – 14 June – Jerzy Kosiński

Jerzy Kosiński was born on 14 June 1933 and died on 3 May 1991.

Jerzy Kosiński Quotes

1. Life is a state of mind.
2. The process of writing is a process of inner expansion and reduction. It’s like an accordion: You open it and then you bring it back, hoping that additional sound—a new clarity—may come out. It’s all for clarity.
3. Here was one place where I could find out who I was and what I was going to become. And that was the public library.
4. The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.
5. There’s a place beyond words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return. I suspect that whenever I articulate my thoughts or translate my impulses into words, I am betraying the real thoughts and impulses which remain hidden.
6. I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.
7. I suppress in my prose any language which calls attention to itself.
8. I do like to live in other people’s homes. I enjoy being a guest. I am an inexpensive guest. When one lives in another’s home he can enter into the psychic kingdom of that person.
9. The principle of art is to pause, not bypass.

Jerzy Kosiński was an award-winning Polish-American novelist. He is best known for his novels, The Painted Bird and Being There, which was adapted as an Academy Award-winning film. Kosinski’s writing examines themes of alienation, survival, and the individual’s struggle against powerful forces. In later years Kosinski was an active member of several Polish-Jewish foundations and was president (1973–75) of the American branch of the international writers organization PEN.

Source for image: Eric Koch, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jerzy_Kosi%C5%84ski_(by_Eric_Koch,_1969).jpg

by Amanda Patterson
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