Quotes

  • The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say. Mark Twain
  • The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. Anaïs Nin
  • It is perfectly okay to write garbage--as long as you edit brilliantly.
     C. J. Cherryh
  • Never throw up on an editor. Ellen Datlow
  • Writers are always selling somebody out. Joan Didion
  • This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I trust Him. Psalm 91:2
  • For no one can pay enough to live forever and never see the grave. Psalm 49:9
  • Teach me how to live, O Lord. Psalm 27:11
  • Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer… Psalm 86:1
  • Human beings are not born once for all time on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them, over and over again, to give birth to themselves. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, from Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept: you get so much attention without having to actually show up somewhere. Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
  • …you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. from Bird by Bird, Anne quotes her friend Tom
  • I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been. Wayne Gretzky, as quoted by Steve Jobs in his keynote speech at MacWorld 2007, San Francisco
  • Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s forthcoming attractions. Albert Einstein
  • [Jesus] said,"Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am...What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?" Mark 8:34-37 MSG
  • Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. E.L. Doctorow
  • Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass Anton Chekhov
  • A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order Jean Luc Godard
  • I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper. Steve Martin
  • No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. Robert Frost
  • A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction. William Faulkner
  • What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can't reread a phone call. Liz Carpenter
  • I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on. Beryl Pfizer
  • Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
     Benjamin Franklin
  • I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. Groucho Marx
  • If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.
     Natalie Goldberg
  • If you think that something small cannot make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in the room.
     Anonymous
  • Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Scott Adams
  • It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.
    William Faulkner
  • How vain it is to sit down to write if you have not stood up to live. Henry David Thoreau
  • All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath. F Scott Fitzgerald
  • I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. James Michener
  • I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head. John Updike
  • Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. Ernest Hemingway
  • Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publication.
     Fran Lebowitz
  • A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it to be God. Sidney Sheldon
  • I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done. Stephen Wright
  • Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies. Emme Woodhull-Bäche
  • A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one. Baltasar Gracián
  • It's not plagiarism - I'm recycling words, as any good environmentally conscious writer would do. Uniek Swain
  • If I fall asleep with a pen in my hand, don't remove it - I might be writing in my dreams. Danzae Pace
  • I even shower with my pen, in case any ideas drip out of the waterhead. Graycie Harmon
  • A notepad by the bedside accounts for half the earnings of my livelihood. If it weren't for bedtime, half my novels would still be stuck at dock. Ever Garrison
  • One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. Hart Crane
  • Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life. Bertolt Brecht
  • And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin
  • In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write. Pearl S. Buck
  • Fiction is the truth inside the lie. Stephen King