--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: Once or twice, at night, he planted…" description: "\"“Once or twice, at night, he planted himself in front of the type-writer, trying to get back to the book he'd come to New York to write. It was suppose..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/64d/garth-risk-hallberg-7516_anton-chekhov_once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himsel_1029596.jpg" --- # Once or twice, at night, he planted himself in front of… ![“Once or twice, at night, he planted himself in front of the type-writer, trying to get back to the book he'd come to New York to write. It was supposed to be about America, and freedom, and the kinship of time to pain, but in order to write about these things, he'd needed experience. Well, be…” quote by Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/64d/garth-risk-hallberg-7516_anton-chekhov_once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himsel_1029596.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/64d/garth-risk-hallberg-7516_anton-chekhov_once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himsel_1029596.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/64d/garth-risk-hallberg-7516_anton-chekhov_once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himsel_1029596.jpg) > ““Once or twice, at night, he planted himself in front of the type-writer, trying to get back to the book he'd come to New York to write. It was supposed to be about America, and freedom, and the kinship of time to pain, but in order to write about these things, he'd needed experience. Well, be careful what you wish for. For now all he seemed capable of producing was a string of sentences starting, Here was William . Here was William's courage, for example. And here was William's sadness, smallness of stature, size of hands. Here was his laugh in a dark movie theater, his unpunk love of the films of Woody Allen, not for any of the obvious ways they flattered his sensibility, but for something he called their tragic sense , which he compared to Chekhov's (whom Mercer knew he had not read). Here was the way he never asked Mercer about his work; the way he never talked about his own and yet seemed to carry it with him just beneath the skin; the way his skin looked in the sodium light from outside with the light off, with clothes off, in silver rain; the way he embodied qualities Mercer wanted to have, but without ruining them by wanting to have them; the way his genius overflowed its vessel, running off into the drain; the unfinished self-portrait; the hint of some trauma in his past, like the war a shell-shocked town never talks about; his terrible taste in friends; his complete lack of discipline; the inborn incapacity for certain basic things that made you want to mother him, fuck him, give your right and left arms for him, this man-child, this skinny American; and finally his wildness, his refusal to be imaginable by anyone.”” [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. The narrator struggles to capture profound themes without lived experience, leading to shallow, repetitive descriptions of a character’s traits and trauma. **In simple terms:** He tries to write about deep ideas but lacks the depth, resulting in cliché details. Key Takeaway Seek authentic experience before tackling big ideas. Themes authorship authenticity trauma identity creative struggle Mood reflective critical melancholic Type analytical philosophical When to use this quote - writing workshops - personal memoirs - therapy sessions - creative retreats - academic seminars Key Concepts self‑reflection literary criticism psychology Questions to Reflect On - How does personal experience shape artistic credibility? - When does portrayal become exploitation? A Different Perspective The passage may romanticize suffering as artistic fuel, overlooking ethical concerns of exploiting trauma. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Anton-chekhov](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/anton-chekhov-2/) [City-on-fire](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/city-on-fire/) [Experience](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/experience/) [Garth-risk-hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/garth-risk-hallberg/) [Gay](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/gay/) [Inspiration](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/inspiration/) [Love](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/love/) [Movie theater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/movie-theater/) [Muse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/muse/) [Obsession](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/obsession/) [Otp](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/otp/) [Relationship](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/relationship/) [Time](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/time/) [Writing](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/writing/) ## Related quotes > [“And as he reached for William's leg, the way a small child will reach for its mother's, there welled up through a small hole…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/and-as-he-reached-for-william-s-leg-the-way-a-small-child-will-reach/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“When he went to go get groceries, though, he asked Mercer to come. 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And then…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/because-if-every-moment-of-a-life-is-present-in-every-other-so-is/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“Between the whiskers scraggling down his neck and the now-crooked glasses, he could have been the Black Allen Ginsberg.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/between-the-whiskers-scraggling-down-his-neck-and-the-now-crooked/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“But no, what interested him, psychologically speaking, was the sense of continuity itself, the mind's insistence that this was the same Regan he'd known…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/but-no-what-interested-him-psychologically-speaking-was-the-sense-of/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“He lights a cigarette off a candle. 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