Quotes
Here are some quotes about writing and storytelling I have discovered over time. These are ones that I have particularly enjoyed, or inspired me to tell my stories. Some of them are not directly related to writing, but they are included because of the guidance they provided to me.
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- A room without books is like a body without a soul.
- Cicero
- Writing is the original virtual reality.
- Jim Butcher
- Small wonder that spell means both a story told, and a formula of power over living men.
- J.R.R. Tolkien
- There is no role-playing in an online game that can match what happens in person.
- Gary Gygax
- Enough shovels of earth – a mountain. Enough pails of water – a river.
- Chinese proverb
- You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
- Wayne Gretzky
- Paradoxically, when you write from the imagination you’re writing what you know but from such a deep level of knowing that you don’t know that you know it until it’s revealed in your writing.
- Emily Hanlon, Writer’s Digest, December 2007
- Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to chewed and digested.
- Sir Francis Bacon
- Writers writer; everyone else makes excuses.
- Jack Bickham
- Every ‘no’ means you’re one step closer to a ‘yes.’
- Ali Eickholt (From a CSFWG Yahoo! Group posting.)
- Writer: One who brings life to words and words to life.
- Diane Fromme
- Put the care into scare!
- G.W. Thomas
- All you need to do is write truly, and not care about what the fate of it is.
- Ernest Hemingway
- I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.
- Jorge Louis Borges
- My mind is like a spin-dryer at full speed, my thoughts fly around my skull while millions of beautiful words cascade down in my lap.
- Christopher Nolan
- Images gunfire across my consciousness and while trying to discipline them I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind’s expanse.
- Christopher Nolan
- Lots of people hear voices. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Some of them are called writers, and mostly they do the same thing.
- Margaret Chittenden
- Imagination does not become great until a person, given the courage an strength, uses it to create. If this does not occur, the imagination addresses itself only to a spirit wandering in emptiness.
- Maria Montessori
- I’d be in so much trouble without this revision thing.
- Carrie Vaughn
- For every revision there is an equal and opposite revision.
- R. Michael Burns
- Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.
- Fred Shero
- There is no perfect time to write. There is only now.
- Barbara Kingsolver
- I don’t write for anything but the muse.
- Niel Young
- Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
- Will Rogers
- Getting between the artist and their work must be a bit like coming between the addict and their drug of choice.
- Sam Ivie
- It’s that WANT that turns into DESIRE that turns into NEED that DRIVES the best in the world.
- J.T. Evans (I said this on Facebook and a friend of mine required me to put it here. It’s his requirements, not my ego that caused this quote of mine to land here.)
- There’s no such thing as wasted writing.
- Carrie Vaughn
- Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
- E.L. Doctorow
- Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make. Good. Art.
- Neil Gaiman
- Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.
- Jane Yolen
- Knowing is not enough. We must apply. Willing is not enough. We must do.
- Bruce Lee
- If you aim at nothing, there’s a very good chance you’ll hit it.
- James Scott Bell
