My Favorite Quotes: 2

"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill this monster, and fling him to the public." --Winston Churchill

"A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others." -- William Faulkner

"Remember the power of revision, build the five senses into a narrative to give it the texture of life, and remember the power of suspense." --George Garrett

"Studies suggest that the key to success in any field has nothing to do with talent. It's simply practice, 10,000 hours of it -- 20 hours a week for 10 years." --Lev Grossman, summarizing Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-Hour Rule

"As authors, we must keep steeling ourselves against the extent to which we are in this work not for the money, but for the words. Who would sit all day straining to extrude sentences through his or her fingertips who did not have a serious problem with words?" --Roy Blount Jr.

"Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is a ridiculous one." --Voltaire

"There is no royal path to good writing, and such paths as exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft." --Jessamyn West

"Many critics are like a woodpecker, who, instead of enjoying the fruit and shadow of a tree, hop incessantly around the trunk pecking holes in the bark to discover some little worm or other." --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work." --Thomas Edison

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." --Jack London

"The function of an editor is to prevent a writer from making a fool of himself." --Kathryn Harrison, quoting Bob Shacochis

"Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one." --Lyndon Baines Johnson

"Do not understand me too quickly." --André Gide


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