Tracy K. Smith Quotes

I started writing when I was 21. I was going to become an historian. And then I realized there was more to the world than just the past. I didn't want to spend my life in the library.

I write about what I know; and I write about things that are new to me, and that I didn't know before.

If you don't travel the world and see as much of it as you can - see different characters in different situations - then how are you going to learn? I figured the best way to do that was to explore as much as I could.

Curiosity is the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself.

All writers have roots they draw from - travel, work, family. My roots are in science and it is fertile ground for fiction.

When I was younger, I felt it essential to see every movie ever made. Now I feel as though I've got to read every book, see every art show, watch every play and opera and concert and so on. It does not end, and of course there is truth in the old cliche that the more one knows, the more one realizes one knows nothing at all.

Part of the reasons I have lived the life I have is because I wanted to have an adventurous life. But my best adventures are more literary than political.

I'm interested in everything. If I had enough time on this earth, I'd like to learn every art practice.

Every writer needs new material now and then, whether it's traveling to Japan, volunteering at a food bank, learning a new language, or trying a new food.

I'm drawn to a story partly based on the fact that it's something I might not be as familiar with.

I am like a sponge: I adore reading, watching films, and visiting museums and exhibitions. I am always in search of new things in many spheres.

It's not that I'm using my life to put on screen or in my acting, it's that, when you're living in the world, you're exposed to stories, to people, to things that feel foreign and unfamiliar. And I'm curious about those things, me personally.

If you approach each new person you meet in a spirit of adventure, you will find yourself endlessly fascinated by the new channels of thought and experience and personality that you encounter.

I'm always looking for something to engage my imagination and take me on a little mental voyage. I just want a new topic in my life.

I travel because I want to know. Books and documentaries will only get you so far. If you want to know, you will have to go.

One of the benefits of a bad education is the constant pleasure of discovery.

We will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it.

When I was a kid, the world was such a big place, and I had no idea that I would be afforded these great moments in between doing what I love to do. I'm able to actually choose places to go which have intrigued me for the last god knows how many years, and Tasmania's always been one of those places. I see it all and yet I see so little because it's so fast.

Reading makes me want to write my own books, and just trying to understand what I see in the world around me makes me want to figure things out.

The days on which one has been the most inquisitive are among the days on which one has been happiest.

Never cease doubting. When the doubts stop it is because you have stopped journeying.

Her curiosity instructed her more than the answers she was given.

If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you'll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you've already been in.

Personal experimentation is revealing, and once you get into it, immensely engaging.

One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around.