Showing posts with label quote. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quote. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

E. L. Doctorow, on writing:


Writing is an exploration.
You start from nothing and learn as you go.

- E. L. Doctorow.

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Francine Prose, on writing and reading:


Like most – maybe all – writers,
I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books.

– Francine Prose.

Monday, March 31, 2025

Harlan Ellison, on writing:


People on the outside think there's something magical about writing,
that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that.
You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it.

- Harlan Ellison.

Sunday, March 30, 2025

Edna Ferber, on writing:


Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing,
for life itself is a writer's lover until death -
fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.

- Edna Ferber, A Kind of Magic (1963).

Saturday, March 29, 2025

Edgar Allan Poe, on writing:


Through joy and through sorrow, I wrote.
Through hunger and through thirst, I wrote.
Through good report and through ill report, I wrote.
Through sunshine and through moonshine, I wrote ...

- Edgar Allan Poe.

Friday, March 28, 2025

Liane Moriarty, on writing:


My real thinking and planning gets done when I'm doing something else,
like driving or walking or taking a shower.

- Liane Moriarty.

Thursday, March 27, 2025

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost:

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost.
Published in 1916.
 
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
 
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
 
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
 
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
 
Robert Frost
(1874 – 1963)

Harper Lee, on writing:


Writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer.

There are people who write, but I think they’re quite different from people who must write.

– Harper Lee.

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

James A. Michener, on writing:


I love writing.
I love the swirl of words as they tangle with human emotions.

- James A. Michener.

Monday, March 24, 2025

Erma Bombeck, on dedication:


When I stand before God at the end of my life,
I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say,
'I used everything You gave me'.

- Erma Bombeck.

Sunday, March 23, 2025

Saturday, March 22, 2025

Herta Muller, on writing:


I have always written only for myself - to clarify things,
to clarify things with myself,
to understand in an inner way what is actually happening.

- Herta Muller.

Friday, March 21, 2025

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Erica Jong, on writing:


All writing problems are psychological problems.
Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged.
If you imagine the world listening, you'll never write a line.
That's why privacy is so important.
You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.

- Erica Jong.

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Desiderius Erasmus, on books:


When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.

- Desiderius Erasmus.

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Judy Blume, on writing:


The best books come from someplace inside.
You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.

- Judy Blume.

Monday, March 17, 2025

Napoleon Hill, on imagination and writing:


First comes thought;
then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans;
then transformation of those plans into reality.
The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.

- Napoleon Hill.

Sunday, March 16, 2025

Vickie Karp, on reading and writing:


When we read, we start at the beginning and continue until we reach the end.
When we write, we start in the middle and fight our way out.

- Vickie Karp.

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Introvert insight:


I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

– Henry David Thoreau.
 
Don’t think of introversion as something that needs to be cured.

– Susan Cain.
 
I don’t have time for superficial friends.
I suppose, if you’re really lonely, you can call a superficial friend, but otherwise, what’s the point?

– Courtney Cox.
 
Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.

– William S. Burroughs.