Phyllis A. Whitney Quotes & Sayings

I talk to myself on paper about my characters - sometimes writing in first person ... I keep lists of unanswered questions that I can always turn to in order to get myself going. — Phyllis A. Whitney

Problem, purpose, conflict, goal. Use them. Think about them while you are in the planning phase of your novel; keep these elements at the back of your mind to guide you while you write. When you have written a scene, make sure they are all there, or that if one or another is missing, it is intentional and the effect is what you want. — Phyllis A. Whitney

Reading had always been my lifeline
an escape to that imaginary world where hurts were fictional and endings happy ... — Phyllis A. Whitney

A good book isn't written, it's rewritten. — Phyllis A. Whitney

You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist you must learn your craft - then you can add all the genius you like. — Phyllis A. Whitney

There's only one good reason to be a writer-we can't help it! We'd all like to be rich, famous and successful, but if those are our goals, we're off on a wrong foot ... I just wanted to earn enough money so I could work at home on my writing. — Phyllis A. Whitney

Reading has always been a major part of my life. It has broadened my world and taken me to places I would otherwise have never seen. Now that I am a hundred years old (this September) it still takes me to the outside world I can no longer visit. — Phyllis A. Whitney

Short of throwing away all television sets, I really don't know what we can do about writing. — Phyllis A. Whitney

Nobody wanted me. I just kept writing books and learning my craft. Most writers aren't very good in the beginning. — Phyllis A. Whitney

Good stories are not written. They are rewritten. — Phyllis A. Whitney

It's hard to come up with a 'quote' about myself. Perhaps I could say that most of my writing has been concerned with understanding between people. Whether of different races, or religions, or even in the same family I tried in my books ... to deal with the subject of understanding the other fellow. — Phyllis A. Whitney

A map is not a journey. — Phyllis A. Whitney

Broken hearts mend. It's a lot harder to mend broken lives. — Phyllis A. Whitney

But emotion cannot be buried by words, though it can be aroused by them. — Phyllis A. Whitney

As good as' always spells mediocrity. But when a writer's work is in competition with all those thousands of other manuscripts that pour over an editor's desk, he cannot afford to be 'as good as'; he (or she) must be 'better than. — Phyllis A. Whitney

One of the wonderful things about being ALIVE is that it's never too late. — Phyllis A. Whitney