Authors unintentionally reveal themselves in what and how they choose to write.
Nancy Marie Brown, The Song of the Vikings
I'm writing this on the fine edge of that blade that's consciousness on one side and dream on the other, that thin silver horizon where you hover right before falling asleep, and right before completely waking.
Steve Erickson, "Introduction to The Sandman 3: Dream Country"
Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.
attr. Louis L'Amour
If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.
attr. Toni Morrison
It appeared to be written in English, but it was a variety of English which Isabel felt occurred only in certain corners of academia, where faux weightiness was a virtue.
Alexander McCall Smith, The Sunday Philosophy Club
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.
Neil Gaiman, Newberry acceptance speech for The Graveyard Book
Perhaps the term 'essay-form' is not happily chosen since the charm of the essay lies in the fact that it is not formal, that it may be whimsical in its points of departure, and capricious in its ramblings after it has got itself under way.
The Oxford Book of American Essays
theblastofatrumpet reblogged
nayyirahwaheed-deactivated20180
and what if i write of you.
is that more love than you can handle.
nayyirah waheed (via nayyirahwaheed)
That is the essential. That is the stern condition laid upon all artists touching this luxury of fear. The terror must be fundamentally frivolous. Sanity may play with insanity; but insanity must not be allowed to play with sanity.
G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered
What masterpieces we'd have if writers accepted the need for daily practice and total sacrifice as the great athletes do.
Alain de Botton
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Attributed to Benjamin Franklin.
theblastofatrumpet reblogged
oh for pity’s sake, write something
New motto.