Written words and spoken words register in different parts of the brain, with consequences Diane Keaton notes:
I love to listen to audiobooks, particularly on road trips. Last Christmas, driving from L.A. to San Francisco, I listened to Patti Smith’s “Just Kids.” It was a revelation. Or rather, she was. What is it about her voice? The way she uses her words and makes them sing? Her pace? Slow. Captivating. Patti and I are the same age. We both lived in New York during those early years of our careers. Yet without her book on tape I could never have imagined New York or the people she knew, or her beautiful mind. It was the sound of her voice coming through loud and clear, but quiet and compelling, inside the front seat of my black car. When I was writing “Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty,” I read paragraphs, then sections, then the entire pieces out loud over and over and over and over again and again. It helped me understand the book’s structure. It gave me a clearer sense of what I was trying to say. Silence is not my friend, but hearing is.
(Quoted from page 8 of The New York Times Book Review, May 4, 2014.)
For a brief biography of Diane Keaton, click here. For images of or relating to Diane Keaton, click here.
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