Saturday, February 29, 2020

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Quotes of the Week

Remember to get the weather in your damn book — weather is very important.
—Ernest Hemingway

I am a writer, and I write what I want to write.
—J.K. Rowling

When you’re speaking in the truest, most intimate voice about your life, you are speaking with the universal voice.
—Cheryl Strayed

The first person you should think of pleasing in writing a book is yourself. If you can amuse yourself for the length of time it takes to write a book, the publishers and the readers can and will come later.
—Patricia Highsmith

I do a lot of rewriting. It’s very painful.
—James Baldwin

Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said.”
—Elmore Leonard

I think it’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other people’s expectations. They generally produce their worst work when they do that.
—David Bowie

I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.
—Anne Frank

I never forget that the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices and even the gutters of his country, has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent.
—James M. Cain

If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.
—Billie Holiday

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.
—Flannery O'Connor

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Quotes of the Week

You'll go through a phase where you will imitate your favorite writers and that's fine because that's a learning experience too.
—J.K. Rowling

A good style should show no sign of effort. What is written should seem to be a happy accident.
—W. Somerset Maugham

Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook.
—Jane Kenyon

Write one good clean sentence and put a period at the end of it. Then write another one.
—M.F.K. Fisher

Do it now—write nothing but what your conviction of its truth inspires you to write.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
—Flannery O’Connor

If I put love into the work, it will find friends.
—Vincent Van Gogh

I write as straight as I can, just as I walk as straight as I can, because that is the best way to get there.
—H.G. Wells

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not caring what anyone else says.
—Gore Vidal

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Quotes of the Week

The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.
—Frank Herbert

All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories.
—Neil Gaiman

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.
—D. H. Lawrence

Tell a story! Don’t try to impress your reader with style or vocabulary or neatly turned phrases. Tell the story first.
—Anne McCaffrey

Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room and doing it.
—William Goldman

It is impossible to discourage real writers—they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.
—Sinclair Lewis

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because the people fail to see it.
—James A. Michener

Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction.
—Clint Eastwood

The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn’t.
—Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Well, let them talk. I can take it. Only one person can hurt me. Her name is Ida Lupino.
—Ida Lupino

My advice is not to wait to be struck by an idea. If you’re a writer, you sit down and damn well decide to have an idea.
—Andy Rooney

To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.
—Allen Ginsberg

Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Quotes of the Week

A word, after a word, after a word, is power.
—Margaret Atwood

Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.
—Ernest Hemingway

I just give myself permission to suck. I delete about 90 percent of my first drafts … so it doesn’t really matter much if on a particular day I write beautiful and brilliant prose...I’m just gonna delete whatever I write anyway. I find this hugely liberating.
—John Green

We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work.
—Thomas A. Edison

Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.
—Jimmy Stewart

You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.
—Robin Williams

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.
—Louis L'Amour

Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. Just do it and the confidence will follow.
—Carrie Fisher

Fairy tales are more than true not because they tell us that dragons exist but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
—G. K. Chesterton

Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers.
—Steven Spielberg


Tuesday Tip: Heart-Break