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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
aeaef27 I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. humour writing work humor Douglas Adams
6b14df1 There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. 1970 writing inspirational stories Maya Angelou
1d7bdbc What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though. literature reading writing books J.D. Salinger
ea4f9a6 Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. women writing Virginia Woolf
533bfab One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. writing simplicity Jack Kerouac
37355ee Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it. writing fantasy inspirational Lloyd Alexander
a70b96b Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. reading writing morality Oscar Wilde
f295207 Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. writing inspirational Louis L'Amour
81793cf We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. writing quip invention wings Kurt Vonnegut
837bfec If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. writing arts-and-humanities creative-process Kurt Vonnegut
0253c76 you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. writing positive-thinking self-empowerment Stephen King
18762c4 There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts. writing Charles Dickens
e24cc84 Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. semicolons writing Kurt Vonnegut
ca88e57 Tears are words that need to be written. writing sadness inspirational Paulo Coelho
0434be0 A short story is a different thing altogether - a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger. writing Stephen King
98cfb3b The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words. writing William H. Gass
f0e9f85 So what? All writers are lunatics! writing Cornelia Funke
100b2ef Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul. writing Toni Morrison
401651c "What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic." [ (1980)]" words literature reading writing Carl Sagan
76342fb This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it's just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be. writing David Levithan
c003b02 Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos... to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream. fiction writing books inspirational on-fiction John Cheever
ac31cbd Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write act-of-creation poetry writing inspirational art creativity Rainer Maria Rilke
fb17585 great writers are indecent people they live unfairly saving the best part for paper. good human beings save the world so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal. if you read this after I am dead it means I made it. writing Charles Bukowski
57aed8e Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work. writing inspirational productivity Stephen King
3640572 Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it. story writing eye-contact profession creative-process storytelling introverts John Green
fd5e507 The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. writing skill quality writers Ray Bradbury
f6cfb55 Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it. writing perfectionism Anne Lamott
92d437c A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. writing writers Franz Kafka
6c767ff A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen. men equality feminism poetry women writing empowerment dignity judgment misogyny hypocrisy double-standards respect gender Virginia Woolf
cff0ccf A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. money women writing virgin on-writing Virginia Woolf
aa278eb "When Great Trees Fall When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety. When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear. When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken. Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves. And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. poets poem poems poetry writing death life i-shall-not-be-moved when-great-trees-fall maya-angelou trees souls peace soul writers poet Maya Angelou
e3b7a4e The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it. writing Margaret Atwood
2a056b5 some moments are nice, some are nicer, some are even worth writing about. poetry writing love war-all-the-time moments nice Charles Bukowski
d66098d You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect. writing life language John Green
a8fe92b No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o'clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons. writing novels writers Ishmael Reed
bd80398 Cynics are simply thwarted romantics. writing humor life romantics William Goldman
4e6591c Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. writing Stephen King
0850ec2 Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you over dramatize it, or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong parts or ignore the important ones. At any rate, you never write it quite the way you want to. writing plath sylvia Sylvia Plath
ba330f6 "It has often been said there's so much to be read, you never can cram all those words in your head. So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads. That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is, the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is. And that's why your books have such power and strength. writing Dr. Seuss
897bf2b My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see. writing inspirational power-of-words Joseph Conrad
a079464 I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen. writing challenges keys Louisa May Alcott
03f3c38 Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings. writing deleting revising editing kill Stephen King
f08ceaa Living with him is like being told a perpetual story: his mind is the biggest, most imaginative I have ever met. I could live in its growing countries forever. writing Sylvia Plath
ddd90ae Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it. writing J.D. Salinger
950e1d4 If you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you're at it? Go ahead. Nothing's off limits. But the endless possibility of the genre is a trap. It's easy to get distracted by the glittering props available to you and forget what you're supposed to be doing: telling a good story. Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be. writing fantasy inspirational fantasy-books Patrick Rothfuss
e66f501 There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland. writing storygirl L.M. Montgomery
cc9e5d0 So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. writing Virginia Woolf
142d236 Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open. writing Natalie Goldberg
5e95f1d Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation. writing life therapy Graham Greene
55f003e The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. writing inspirational Emily Dickinson
e4563e9 E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard. writing life inspirational Anne Lamott
d9c05f2 Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding. For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding. We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I'm kidding. If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. writing humor creative-process Kurt Vonnegut
878ecad As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split. writing reviewers critics literary-criticism kurt Vonnegut
db8b69b You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be. writer writing writers Anne Lamott
7a7c436 To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man. writing philosophy inspirational Aristotle
c83259c Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river. reading writing storytellers storytelling novelists writers Lisa See
ab12b03 I felt after I finished Slaughterhouse-Five that I didn't have to write at all anymore if I didn't want to. It was the end of some sort of career. I don't know why, exactly. I suppose that flowers, when they're through blooming, have some sort of awareness of some purpose having been served. Flowers didn't ask to be flowers and I didn't ask to be me. At the end of Slaughterhouse-Five...I had a shutting-off feeling...that I had done what I was supposed to do and everything was OK . writing books bloom finished slaughterhouse-five book complete flowers awareness Kurt Vonnegut
c275be8 Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others. reading writing Virginia Woolf
28e22ab A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. writing beginning end creative-process storytelling Graham Greene
bc5f586 She was a beautiful dreamer. The kind of girl, who kept her head in the clouds, loved above the stars and left regret beneath the earth she walked on. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
e39e221 I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip. history writing dip dunce food John Kennedy Toole
513af98 So okay-- there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You've blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want. writing Stephen King
575bd5d "I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality.' understanding writing spirituality spiritual difficulty possibility atheist sarcasm Philip Pullman
2bffa96 There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair. writing insightful Haruki Murakami
62b4f04 Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly. library writing bible science bitter childish-beliefs guides invade uneducated unimaginative unthinking guide childish leader leaders imagine ignore home resentment ignorance shame thought the-bible school Isaac Asimov
86821e5 This tremendous world I have inside of me. How to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces. And rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me. writing creative-imagination inner-world world-building creative-process Kafka Franz
4dcc444 When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature. writing true-to-life skill characters Ernest Hemingway
9c9f80a Indeed, learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading. reading writing learning inspirational devotion Eudora Welty
9f49591 We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write. writing write readers stories Neil Gaiman
1427b37 Written words can also sing. writing inspirational Ng?g? wa Thiong’o
111fa2e When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. feminism history women writing witches empowerment dignity social-norms suppression misogyny women-writers gender persecution Virginia Woolf
d1c1965 If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, 'When you're ready'. writing David Mitchell
92258b9 I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. writing books beauty music life chaos painting W. Somerset Maugham
c0a9cf3 A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth. fiction writing on-fiction stories Diane Setterfield
1f88d6b Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers. courage writing empowerment strength guenter-grass record-of-life creative-process experience memory Salman Rushdie
a9daff4 "All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel. writing Margaret Atwood
5646f94 Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck's book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man's stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more. writing humor Donald Miller
03dbf3e I have spent a good many years since--too many, I think--being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all. writing-life writing Stephen King
28f0d43 Death is the easy part, the hard part is living and knowing you could be so much more then you're willing to be. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
051b941 The second thing you have to do to be a writer is to keep on writing. Don't listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won't be one of them. Don't listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don't have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. I meet far too many people who are going to be writers 'someday.' When they are out of high school, when they've finished college, after the wedding, when the kids are older, after I retire . . . That is such a trap You will never have any more free time than you do right now. So, whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That's okay. I think we've all 'been there, done that.' It all starts with the writing. writing inspirational Robin Hobb
d8034bc "Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." time writing breaking-down-assignment project-management homework project time-management encouragement writing-advice childhood school Anne Lamott
7a9a7b4 Nothing's a better cure for writer's block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton. writing humor inspirational Don Roff
fab34c5 I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too. writing Mary Oliver
6e2bc00 It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they come from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them -- with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all the reading I could give them ... literature reading writing inspiration storytelling creativity Eudora Welty
4512c64 "Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on. writing word-choice Lewis Carroll
7814c78 Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. writing imitation originality maturity plagiarism T.S. Eliot
1e73341 Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience. writing inspirational creativity Henry David Thoreau
63e64df I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me. writing writers-on-writing Hunter S. Thompson
50479b2 "No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"...No woman has ever written enough." writing bell hooks
52b7ad3 When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story. perfection fiction discovery writing overdetermination plot mystery Charles Baxter
f6ad880 My favourite piece of information is that Branwell Bronte, brother of Emily and Charlotte, died standing up leaning against a mantle piece, in order to prove it could be done. This is not quite true, in fact. My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees. However, this is not relevant to what is currently on my mind because it concerns sloths, whereas the Branwell Bronte piece of information concerns writers and feeling like death and doing things to prove they can be done, all of which are pertinent to my current situation to a degree that is, frankly, spooky. writing writers Douglas Adams (The Salmon of Doubt)
70dd2b7 Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together. writing construction creative-process destruction writers Ray Bradbury
27afe35 Beauty is not who you are on the outside, it is the wisdom and time you gave away to save another struggling soul like you. activist beautiful-personatlity beautiful-soul fathers giving-heart helping-out homeless-tent-community jealousy marine-life-conservation medical-missions motivators openess outward-beauty people-of-action real-people rescuers search-and-rescue time true-beauty prayer writing compassion inspiration philosophy truth inspirational empathetic takers communicators perspectives inner-beauty tender givers loving charity mothers community friendships service reflection judgement vanity aging Shannon L. Alder
e130478 Sometimes the most beautiful people are beautifully broken. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
e02f0c6 In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book. writing inspirational writers-on-writing writers Junot Diaz
b42bcef It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because of what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavors, in the air or on the tongue, half-colors, too many. writing Margaret Atwood
feae886 To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make. poetry writing music Truman Capote
e151052 If you're young and talented, it's like you have wings. youth writing talent Haruki Murakami
9173706 "What is your advice to young writers?" "Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes." irony sex writing funny humor bukowski smoke alcohol cigarettes authors ironic writing-process drink writers sarcasm Charles Bukowski
1af7301 Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have "essential" and "long overdue" meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg. writing inspirational writing-inspiration j-k-rowling writers J.K. Rowling
ea09756 A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid. writing inspirational William Faulkner
08a7333 Sometimes to self-discover you must self-destruct. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
fec64bd A story is not like a road to follow ... it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you. discovery writing exploration creative-process stories Alice Munro
2db72a9 I am a strong believer in the tyranny, the dictatorship, the absolute authority of the writer. writing inspirational tyranny Philip Pullman
5f8d142 A tamed woman will never leave her mark in the world. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
f3bf17c "I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze." ( , November 1913)" -- writing spite D.H. Lawrence
588eebb I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. writing Anne Lamott
dc10277 Somewhere along the way we all go a bit mad. So burn, let go and dive into the horror, because maybe it's the chaos which helps us find where we belong. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
19fec60 Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it. writing inspiration sociology creativity Steven Pressfield
c78011d "I sat down and tried to write a story. "Ian MacArthur is a wonderful sweet fellow who wears glasses and peers out of them with delight." That was the first sentence. The problem was that I just couldn't think of the next one. After cleaning my room three times, I decided to leave Ian alone for a while because I was starting to get mad at him." writing Stephen Chbosky
4db72bb Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do-- to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street. fiction writing good-writing Stephen King
671f660 Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called , or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testament--the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana--is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It's not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human. reading writing christianity inspiration religion ancient-greeks cana entheos judaea marriage-at-cana mullahs omar-khayyam symposia iran hellenism passover passover-seder oxford new-testament boredom brotherhood plato miracles atheism food wine Christopher Hitchens
e777fda You grow ravenous. You run fevers. You know exhilarations. You can't sleep at night, because your beast-creature ideas want out and turn you in your bed. It is a grand way to live. writing Ray Bradbury
8b67d78 Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice? poetry writing Virginia Woolf
50a5483 We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause. writing discipline Steven Pressfield
6fcfc3d Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard. writing precision creative-process thinking thought David McCullough
0c7b3e0 The best kind of humans are the ones who stay. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
22f78a9 "Remember that you own what happened to you. If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been raised thinking that if you told the truth about what really went on in your family, a long bony white finger would emerge from a cloud and point to you, while a chilling voice thundered, "We *told* you not to tell." But that was then. Just put down on paper everything you can remember now about your parents and siblings and relatives and neighbors, and we will deal with libel later on." memories writing advice getting-started memoir remembering childhood incest memory Anne Lamott
adb39e1 Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper. writing Anne Lamott
0dfb54b We swallowed the chaos because we knew we didn't want to be ordinary. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
46a29af The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying. writing work Steven Pressfield
6d91c62 Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it. Putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before. And although you are physically by yourself, the haunting Demon never leaves you, that Demon being the knowledge of your own terrible limitations, your hopeless inadequacy, the impossibility of ever getting it right. No matter how diamond-bright your ideas are dancing in your brain, on paper they are earthbound. writing self-doubt doubts William Goldman
772d400 I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man. feminism writing Anne Brontë
5c911d3 The pen will never be able to move fast enough to write down every word discovered in the space of memory. Some things have been lost forever, other things will perhaps be remembered again, and still other things have been lost and found and lost again. There is no way to be sure of any this. writing Paul Auster
ff05d27 Realism can break a writer's heart. writing realism Salman Rushdie
422fa61 We are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter madness writing loyalty mental-illness Allen Ginsberg
de6726a You look up when you wish to be exalted. And I look down because I am exalted. writing wisdom Friedrich Nietzsche
47c52fa Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. writing humor inspirational Kurt Vonnegut
8bb48e8 My first feeling was that there was no way to continue. Writing isn't like math;in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything. writing sadness mathematics Stephenie Meyer
e37df5b I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle. reading writing Kurt Vonnegut
98a4102 "We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter. . . Recording the details of our lives is a stance against bombs with their mass ability to kill, against too much speed and efficiency. A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp's half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer's task to say, "It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a cafe when you can eat macrobiotic at home." Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist - the real truth of who we are: several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blond friend who has black children. We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing." writing inspiration Natalie Goldberg
0284e61 Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream. women writing inspirational intellectual-freedom Virginia Woolf
d5dc1f5 If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing. 1738 writing humor inspirational advice Benjamin Franklin
533e139 A lie was something you told because you were mean or a coward. A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened. Only you didn't tell it like it was, you told it like you thought it should have been. writing Betty Smith
a45de34 When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you're done, you have to step back and look at the forest. writing revisions critical-thinking editing Stephen King
b30cb13 You will write if you will write without thinking of the result in terms of a result, but think of the writing in terms of discovery, which is to say that creation must take plac writing inspirational Gertrude Stein
23956c8 She was broken, I think it's because she loved too much and she was always blind to the fact that love too is sometimes broken. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
8b562bc "You will write if you will write without thinking of the result in terms of a result, but think of the writing in terms of discovery, which is to say that creation must take place writing Gertrude Stein
abcb491 Why am I compelled to write?... Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and anger... To become more intimate with myself and you. To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy. To dispell the myths that I am a mad prophet or a poor suffering soul. To convince myself that I am worthy and that what I have to say is not a pile of shit... Finally I write because I'm scared of writing, but I'm more scared of not writing. writing inspirational Gloria Anzaldúa
388d829 "It took me to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper. And now that I can take it . . . now that I can finally do it . . . I'm really raring to go. I was in my study writing. I was learning how to go down into myself and salvage bits and pieces of the past. I was learning how to sneak up on the unconscious and how to catch my seemingly random thoughts and fantasies. By closing me out of his world, Bennett had opened all sorts of worlds inside my own head. Gradually I began to realize that none of the subjects I wrote poems about engaged my deepest feelings, that there was a great chasm between what I cared about and what I wrote about. Why? What was I afraid of? Myself, most of all, it seemed. "Freedom is an illusion," Bennett would have said and, in a way, I too would have agreed. Sanity, moderation, hard work, stability . . . I believed in them too. But what was that other voice inside of me which kept urging me on toward zipless fucks, and speeding cars and endless wet kisses and guts full of danger? What was that other voice which kept calling me and egging me on to burn my bridges, to swallow the poison in one gulp instead of drop by drop, to go down into the bottom of my fear and see if I could pull myself up? Was it a voice? Or was it a thump? Something even more primitive than speech. A kind of pounding in my gut which I had nicknamed my "hunger-thump." It was as if my stomach thought of itself as a heart. And no matter how I filled it--with men, with books, with food--it refused to be still. Unfillable--that's what I was. Nymphomania of the brain. Starvation of the heart." feminism thoughts writing insecurity Erica Jong
f9de5fe Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding. writing wisdom prophetic Milan Kundera
e3e7dbd Paper is more patient than man. thoughts writing life Anne Frank
f99c3ea Madness and chaos are self-destructing but over thinking is the suicide. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
211c323 If I lived a million lives, I would've felt a million feelings and I still would've fallen a million times for you. happyquotes inspired instadaily instaquote pinquotes poems quoteoftheday relationships rmdrake spokenword vsco writer poetry writing quote hope inspirational inspirationalquotes sadquotes typewriter tattoo sayings lovequotes quotes robert m drake
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