Because there is no better tool for writing than experience. It has very little to do with grammar and everything to do with knowing.
Nearly all monster stories depend for their success on Jack killing the Giant, Beowulf or St. George slaying the Dragon, Harry Potter triumphing over the basilisk. That is their inner grammar, and the whole shape of the story leads towards it.
A philosopher once said, 'Half of good philosophy is good grammar.'
In seventh and eighth grade, grammar and vocabulary were not my favorite subjects.
If I'd been from a different background, I could have gone to a grammar school, I suppose. I might have been a different person.
I am learning the grammar of acting on the sets. And I am happy that way.
In grammar school I read 'Act One' by Moss Hart, and being a playwright struck me as the most magical and romantic career anyone could have... But I never did write a play.
The Margaret Thatchers of this country made it through - like I did - because of the grammar school system, which gave the opportunity of a lifetime to working-class kids. It put them on a level playing field with the privately educated kids, and opened up the top universities to them.
I'm not arguing for a return to the grammar school system, but there must be a way of identifying bright kids from ordinary backgrounds and giving them a world-class education.
When I was at Paisley Grammar we were equipped to compete with the private-school kids - and encouraged to do so. The sky was the limit, provided we had ability, ambition and a capacity for hard work.
