Quotes & Sayings About Note Writing

I think as the world changes, we have to keep up. We have to note what is happening, and I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what's good, and we also have to write about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think it takes a new eye. — Lee Smith

Writing is like listening to a melody line in my head. Note by note, it knows where it wants to go. I follow it and lay it down. I can pare it, shape it, and polish it later ... My job is to take down the dribs and drabs - to free-associate, if you will, knowing that the associations have their own plans for where we're going with all this. — Julia Cameron

I drink a lot, probably too much. My scene while writing lyrics is always a bottle of scotch and stacks of note cards, pencil and pencil sharpener. I throw around note cards and drink. — Ben Folds

On his office wall he had a note to himself: 'Money is necessary
but it isn't too important.' Money meant for him to keep on writing and to go his own way. — Walter Farley

Your whole life and the story of your journey is the landscape picture on the front of the box of a 1,000 piece puzzle. The pieces are each a small sticky note that ends in mid-sentence. You simply need to figure out where each one starts and ends. — Ashly Lorenzana

Alone was the note that Cade knew best. It was the root of all her chords. — Amy Rose Capetta

Very often, gleams of light come in a few minutes' sleeplessness, in a second
perhaps; you must fix them. To entrust them to the relaxed brain is like writing on water; there is every chance that on the morrow there will be no slightest trace left of any happening. — Antonin Sertillanges

There is no formula to it. Writing every song is a little journey. The first note has to lift you. — Enya

Operating by trial and error mostly, we've evolved a tacitly agreed upon list of the elements that make for a good fantasy. The first decision the aspiring fantasist must make is theological. King Arthur and Charlemagne were Christians. Siegfried and Sigurd the Volsung were pagans. My personal view is that pagans write better stories. When a writer is having fun, it shows, and pagans have more fun than Christians. Let's scrape Horace's Dulche et utile off the plate before we even start the banquet. We're writing for fun, not to provide moral instruction. I had much more fun with the Belgariad/Malloreon than you did, because I know where all the jokes are.
All right, then, for item number one, I chose paganism. (Note that Papa Tolkien, a devout Anglo-Catholic, took the same route.) — David Eddings

Sleepless nights, infinite random thoughts, Remembering those moments, he had much to say, an urge to talk to someone, to be cared, to be loved, to be understood !! She was gone by now, And he was lost !! There it was, A white paper note, a pen, and the dark clouds forcing him to spill out !! Yes Words did most of talking, the unsaid words took the paper form .. Strange it was, the way Love was lost somewhere in the Library stacks !! — Douglas Self

I can only think that the book is read because it deals with the difficulties of schooling, which do not change. Please note: the difficulties, not the problems. Problems are solved or disappear with the revolving times. Difficulities remain. It will always be difficult to teach well, to learn accurately; to read, write, and count readily and competently; to acquire a sense of history and start one's education or anothers. — Jacques Barzun

With every script, I write a note to my collaborator that says: 'I write full script. But see it as a guide. You take us where we need to go any way you see fit. I tried to write something specifically for you. If you agree with my choices, fine. If not, you do what you have to do.' — Brian Michael Bendis

I would like permission to fetch a note from my mother, sir' Ridcully sighed. 'Rincewind, you once informed me, to my everlasting puzzlement, that you never knew your mother because she ran away before you were born. Distinctly remember writing it down in my diary. Would you like another try?' 'Permission to go and find my mother?' — Terry Pratchett

Your story is not a picture of life; it lacks the elements of truth. And why? Simply because you run straight on to the end; because you do not analyze. Your heroes do this thing or that from this or that motive, which you assign without ever a thought of dissecting their mental and moral natures. Our feelings, you must remember, are far more complex than all that. In real life every act is the
resultant of a hundred thoughts that come and go, and these
you must study, each by itself, if you would create a living
character. 'But,' you will say, 'in order to note these fleeting
thoughts one must know them, must be able to follow them in their capricious meanderings.You have simply to make use of hypnotism, electrical or human, which gives one a two-fold being, setting free the witness-personality so that it may see, understand, and remember the reasons which determine the personality that acts. — Jules Verne

Let me explain something to you - you have not been standing in front of thirty thousand decibals for thirty-five years - write me a note! — Ozzy Osbourne

Writing a list of ways I could be better
and writing a suicide note
are the same thing — Sierra DeMulder

I think being an editor really helped me take other people's notes on my writing. I'd get a note like 'It's too wet' or 'The first couple chapters are good, but then the rest of the pages were so wet that they were completely illegible' or 'Did you dip this in Sprite? This smells like Sprite. Why would you dip your novel in Sprite?' And instead of pushing back, I'd listen. That's an incredibly important skill for a young writer to have. — Toni Morrison

On a related note, I think for many of us, the first step in becoming a good writer is to write crap. In all seriousness, none of us are born knowing how to write. Almost all of us will produce a lot of really lousy stories before we start to get good. (Not all of us will choose to publish those lousy stories, but that's a whole separate discussion ... ) — Jim C. Hines

Popularity doesn't bother me. It attests to the affection and comprehension of the public. The important thing is to retain the pioneer spirit. I profoundly love the profession, and I work on each film as if it were the first - and the last. Giving the best of myself. Many of the 'greats' ask their arranger to write their scores for them. Me, I write all alone, from the first note to the last. All. — Ennio Morricone

It's impossible to write about the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath without taking note of twenty-five years of paranoia which has collected around that event. — Don DeLillo

The only way to tell my Dad something is to write it on a note, and tie it to a brick, and throw it through a window. Of course, now Dad's armed with a brick. — Christopher Titus

Writing's much more romantic when its pen and ink and paper. It's... More timeless. and worthwhile. Think about it. There are so many words gushing out into the universe these days. All digitally. All in Comic Sans or Times New Roman. Silly Websites. Stupid news stories digitally uploaded to a 24-hour channel. Where's all this writing going? Who's keeping a note of it all? Who's in charge of deciding what's worthwhile and what isn't? But back then... Back then, if someone wanted to write something they had to buy paper. Buy it! And ink. And a pen. And they couldn't waste too many sheets cos it was expensive. So when people wrote, they wrote because it was worthwhile... not just because they had some half-baked idea and they wanted to pointlessly prove their existence by sharing it on some bloody social networking site. — Holly Bourne

Write your dreams in journal,note book, card or on a cork. When you pen down your dreams, an a inner strength and divine power is activated for your to work towards the fulfillment of your dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

As an editor, I must often tell writers that their stories "do not fit our present needs." But there are times when I want to reply: "Sir, I would not trust you to write a ransom note." — Richard Conniff

On November 18 of alternate years Mr Earbrass begins writing 'his new novel'. Weeks ago he chose its title at random from a list of them he keeps in a little green note-book. It being tea-time of the 17th, he is alarmed not to have thought of a plot to which The Unstrung Harp might apply. — Edward Gorey

All family histories, personal histories,are as sketchy and unreliable as histories of the Phoenicians, it seems to me. We should note everything down, fill in the wide gaps if we can. Which is why I am writing this my darlings. — William Boyd

I think writing letters is a lost art, but nowadays it's something that means even more, because it's so easy to communicate in so many different ways. But I find a love letter can even be a little post-it note stuck in your pocket, with a sentence or a few words. — Hilary Swank

You love writing; I hate it; and if I had a lover who expected a note from me every morning, I should certainly break with him. Let me beg you then not to measure my friendship by my writing ... — Madame De La Fayette

While still in Beijing Gao wrote a brief postscript for his seventeen-story collection in which he warns readers that his fiction does not set out to tell a story. There is no plot, as is found in most fiction, and anything of interest to be found in it is inherent in the language itself. More explicit is his proposal that the art of fiction is "the actualisation of language and not the imitation of reality in writing", and that its power to fascinate lies in the fact that, simply by using language, it is able to evoke genuine feeling. — Mabel Lee

I'm writing the book to a children's musical. I got a note from the producers saying, "Can't you make it campier?" So now, I'm trying to determine the camp sensibility of the average eight year old. — Charles Busch

A writer is like a tuning fork: We respond when we're struck by something. The thing is to pay attention, to be ready for radical empathy. If we empty ourselves of ourselves we'll be able to vibrate in synchrony with something deep and powerful. If we're lucky we'll transmit a strong pure note, one that isn't ours, but which passes through us. If we're lucky, it will be a note that reverberates and expands, one that other people will hear and understand. — Roxana Robinson

I'm a plotter. A thinker, a note-maker, a mapper and a flow-charter. I'm up for using any device that will teach me more about the people I'm writing about and their story. — Nick Earls

What was the difference between Anne Frank and any other 15 year old girl living the same nightmare? Nothing! Aside from the fact that Anne spoke through her writings while others kept silent. Someone very special to me recently asked how can I write such personal things as child abuse, relationship problems, sexual addiction, and not fear how the family will feel about these revealings. I have the audacity to write such things because it's MY story. Not my parents, not my brothers, not my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents... MINE. Note to those contemplating writing nonfiction. Write the story. It's yours to tell. Nevermind how your family will feel. Those that love you will not judge you. I promise. Do not let your testimony be in vain. — Katandra Jackson Nunnally

Comedy is more difficult than drama. I think it's really difficult to make someone laugh because people have very different comedic sensibilities. In drama, you can get away with being a great actor and surrounded by great actors and having good writing. But in comedy you have to listen and you have to perform with a certain rhythm, because if you don't, it's like playing a wrong note in the orchestra and you can hear the off key and it will fall flat and you won't get that instant response. — Aimee Garcia

New country music comprises about five percent of what I hear per year. I enjoy it, but I don't really take note of who's singing it or writing it. — Rivers Cuomo

Writing blurbs for books means you have to read the book, and it cuts into the business of bookselling. So every time I get a blurb from a bookseller, I try to write a thank you note. — Gabrielle Zevin

I was interested in writing about gender in this future world where progress has not only halted but turned backward. On another note, sometimes the personal is not so politically correct, and what we are turned on by can't be made to behave. — Edan Lepucki

Until you begin to write, then you will see the beauty of writing. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Should he make a note? He felt for the smooth shape of his pen in his pocket. 'Theme for a novel: The contrary pull ... " No. If this notion were real, he needn't make a note. A notion on which a note had to be made would be stillborn anyway, his notebook was a parish register of such, born and dead on the same page. Let it live if it can. ("Novelty") — John Crowley

Shake was a dramatist of note; He lived by writing things to quote. — H. C. Bunner

I know grammar by ear only, not by note, not by the rules. — Mark Twain

Write it down. Not just to remember it, but to forget it in the right way. My notebook are a kind of materialized subconscious, a hard-copy memory and its invisible substrata, following their own rules. More than once I have been surprised to discover that an idea I thought was new and original, something I set down in a notebook yesterday, is already contained in another note from years before. Sometimes the second version repeats the first, almost word for word, across the space of a decade. The earlier version, once brought with clarity to the surface, has been covered over again by layers of yellowing paper. — Ivan Vladislavic

When you finish for the day, write a note reminding yourself of what you plan to do next. This helps you to remember today's great idea when you get back to work tomorrow. — Nita Leland

He had been living in a down-town Y.M.C.A., but when he quit the task of making sow-ear purses out of sows' ears, he moved up-town and went to work immediately as a reporter for The Sun. He kept at this for a year, doing desultory writing on the side, with little success, and then one day an infelicitous incident peremptorily closed his newspaper career. On a February afternoon he was assigned to report a parade of Squadron A. Snow threatening, he went to sleep instead before a hot fire, and when he woke up did a smooth column about the muffled beats of the horses' hoofs in the snow ... This he handed in. Next morning a marked copy of the paper was sent down to the City Editor with a scrawled note: "Fire the man who wrote this." It seemed that Squadron A had also seen the snow threatening - had postponed the parade until another day. A week later he had begun "The Demon Lover." ... In — F Scott Fitzgerald

When I write, I fall into the zone many writers, painters, musicians, athletes, and craftsmen of all sorts seem to share: In doing something I enjoy and am expert at, deliberate thought falls aside and it is all just THERE. I think of the next word no more than the composer thinks of the next note. — Roger Ebert

The thank-you thing had been drummed into us intensely when we were growing up. We had three great-aunts, on my mother's side, who believed that when they dropped a present in the mail, your thank-you note should essentially bounce right back out of the mailbox at them. If it didn't, the whole family, cousins and second cousins and all, knew about your lack of gratitude (and, come to think of it, common sense, as the threat was always that no more presents would be forthcoming, ever), and you heard about it from multiple sources. The notes couldn't be perfunctory, either - you had to put real elbow grease into them, writing something specific and convincing about each gift. So Christmas afternoon meant laboring over thank-you notes. As children, we hated this task, but when I saw Mom beam as she thanked people in the hospital, I realized something she had been trying to tell us all along. That there's great joy in thanking. — Will Schwalbe

You meet dozens of people who tell you you can't do it. Surround yourself with the people who believe you will do it. Seek out and spend time with those rare people who tell you, no BS, why you haven't done it yet, what it takes to do it, and how they could help you do it. Note how this advice works whether 'it' is robbing a bank, opening a gallery, or writing a bestseller. "It" is up to you. But you can't do it alone. — Heather Grace Stewart

Clench clench these strong teeth in this strong mouth. My mouth. Of my body. In my house. My mouth? Chapped lips swollen and bloody? Dream dreaming wide and thunder? My mouth! My God! This is me speaking. Not mouthing. Not typing and twitching. Not writing a suicide note the length of a novel that will never be finished. I hear voices now but I know they are not the voices of fathers or lovers, or mothers or angels or demons, but the sounds of my own private wars echoing the battles of women before me and near me. No wonder I do not make people comfortable. I am a mirror. I have far too many things to say. (p. 237-238) — Camilla Gibb

O flowers, country, love, inaction,
O fields! I am your devotee!
I always note with satisfaction
Onegin's difference from me,
Lest somewhere a sarcastic reader
Or publisher or such-like breeder
Of complicated calumny
Discerns my physiognomy
And shamelessly repeats the fable
That I have crudely versified
Myself like Byron, bard of pride,
As if we were no longer able
To write a poem and discuss
A subject not concerning us. — Alexander Pushkin

I was curious. Here was a character where I just didn't know how they were going to write him into 13 episodes without it being one note. My fear was that I didn't want to join something where I was just going to be this prop and this mustache twirling character. — Shawn Hatosy

I'm always writing at night - things I would change, things I would do differently. When I write a note, it sticks in my head differently. — Don Mattingly

At the time we were all convinced that we had to speak, write,and publish as quickly as possible and as much as possible and that this was necessary for the good of mankind. Thousands of us published and wrote in an effort to teach others, all the while disclaiming and abusing one another. Without taking note of the fact that we knew nothing, that we did not know the answer to the simplest question of life, the question of what is right and what is wrong, we all went on talking without listening to one another. — Leo Tolstoy

There's this great Ron Carlson story, "A Note on the Type," and it's about this guy who keeps escaping from prison. He's really good at escaping, but he gets caught all the time, because he can't stop writing his name on underpasses where he's running from the law. And there's this whole beautiful paragraph about how to run is to write. And, you know, it's obviously about the writer's life. — Pam Houston

Shakespeare was a dramatist of note who lived by writing things to quote. — H. C. Bunner

People crave encouragement, and sometimes the greatest encouragement is the writing of words that endure. Perhaps you can pen a note of affirmation and approval to someone today. — David Jeremiah

Any experience, which is not written, will be lost in time. Rich literature is lost forever. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Before writing a single note of music, and even before the spotting session, I find it best to sit down with the director and just listen to him or her talk about the film - what they're trying to say, what they want the audience to understand or believe, and a thousand other similar questions. The director has most likely been living with the film for years before a composer is attached, and so the director's inclinations, desires, and understanding of the film are paramount. — John Keltonic

What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the artist's presence makes itself felt above that of the model. With the writer, line takes precedence over form and content. It runs through the words he assembles. It strikes a continuous note unperceived by ear or eye. It is, in a way, the soul's style, and if the line ceases to have a life of its own, if it only describes an arabesque, the soul is missing and the writing dies. — Jean Cocteau

It was funny about writing. It was like flying or driving or playing an instrument. When you were doing it like you were supposed to be doing it, you knew it right inside of you. You could feel that this was the way it should be. But when you wrote a word that you didn't believe in, that didn't fit, it stuck out just like a bumpy landing or a bad turn or a false note. — Jennifer Niven

Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it's the answer to everything ... It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it's a cactus. — Enid Bagnold

He sat before a note book of blank pages, saying: I swallow my own words. I chew and chew everything until it deteriorates. Every thought or impulse I have is chewed into nothingness. I want to capture all my thoughts at once, but they run in all directions. If I could do this I would be capturing the nimblest of minds, like a shoal of minnows. I would reveal innocence and duplicity, generosity and calculation, fear and cowardice and courage. I want to tell the whole truth, but I cannot tell the whole truth because I would have to write four pages at once, like four columns simultaneously, four pages to the present one, and so I do not write at all. I would have to write backwards, retrace my steps constantly to catch the echoes and overtones. — Anais Nin

Oh God how subtle he would have to be, how cunning ... No paragraph, no phrase even of the thousands the book must contain could strike a discordant note, be less than fully imagined, an entire novel's worth of thought would have to be expended on each one. His attention had only to lapse for a moment, between preposition and object, colophon and chapter heading, for dead spots to appear like gangrene that would rot the whole. Silkworms didn't work as finely or as patiently as he must, and yet boldness was all, the large stroke, the end contained in and prophesied by the beginning, the stains of his clouds infinitely various but all signifying sunrise. Unity in diversity, all that guff. An enormous weariness flew over him. The trouble with drink, he had long known, wasn't that it started up these large things but that it belittled the awful difficulties of their execution. ("Novelty") — John Crowley

There should be more or less of a jumble in your head or on your note paper after the first time and even after the second. Much that you will think of in connection will come to nothing and be wasted. But some of it ought to go together under one idea. That idea is the thing to write on and write into the title at the head of your paper ... One idea and a few subordinate ideas - [the trick is] to have those happen to you as you read and catch them - not let them escape you ... The sidelong glance is what you depend on. You look at your author but you keep the tail of your eye on what is happening over and above your author in your own mind and nature. — Robert Frost

I am just doing photo shoots. It's not something that extraordinary. I'm not a great artist, I'm not writing books, I'm not a painter, and people in the streets ask me for a picture or a note, and I say, 'Why?' — Carine Roitfeld

When I go to a music concert, I don't say, "My purpose is to get to the end and enjoy the finale." If that were the purpose, everybody would write finales and nothing more. The purpose of the concert is to enjoy each note as you go along. — Wayne Dyer

One thing about having mostly absent parents that I think was perhaps "good" for the development of my intellect/writing is that I was given almost total freedom to read/write/look at whatever I wanted. I wonder a lot about how my past experiences, particularly my negative childhood (home life and being severely bullied/ostracized throughout school) as formed my/my thoughts/my writing, though I should also note those things were far from the only thing that had an impact on me/my writing. — Marie Calloway

I think the underlying purpose is expression. It's not about technique, it's not about hitting the right note, writing the perfect prose, having the perfect brushstroke. It's about expression of oneself, the things around you, and the emotions. I think expression is the one word that I would use, whether it's for sorrow, tragedy, joy, or even the need to express and be heard. — Charlie Albright

Generations from now, when historians write about these times, they might note that, in the early decades of the twenty-first century, the United States succeeded in its great and historic mission
it globalized the world. But along the way, they might write, it forgot to globalize itself. — Fareed Zakaria

Bach is the supreme genius of music ... This man, who knows everything and feels everything, cannot write one note, however unimportant it may appear, which is anything but transcendent. He has reached the heart of every noble thought, and has done it — Pablo Casals

And when we are writing the life of a woman, we may, it is agreed, waive our demand for action, and substitute love instead. Love, the poet has said, is woman's whole existence. And if we look for a moment at Orlando writing at her table, we must admit that never was there a woman more fitted for that calling. Surely, since she is a woman, and a beautiful woman, and a woman in the prime of life, she will soon give over this pretence of writing and thinking and begin at least to think of a gamekeeper (and as long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking). And then she will write him a little note (and as long as she writes little notes nobody objects to a woman writing either) and make an assignation for Sunday dusk and Sunday dusk will come; and the gamekeeper will whistle under the window
all of which is, of course, the very stuff of life and the only possible subject for fiction. — Virginia Woolf

Never think, because you cannot write a letter easily, that it is better not to write at all. The most awkward note imaginable is better than none. — Emily Post

Boys,
I'm probably sleeping, but hopefully y'all got up on time. You need to be down at the factory by 9. Ask for Zeke.I listened to your interview with Starnes-it's good work, but I've changed my mind about some things.
At six hours per person, we'll never get through the whole town. I'd like you only to ask the following four questions: Where would you live if you could live anywhere? What would you do for a living if you didn't work for the factory? When did your people come to the country? And What do you think makes Gutshot special? I think that'll move things along nicely. They're expecting you at the factory. Lindsey will accompany you.
See you tonight.Hollis.
PS.I'm writing this note at 5:30., SO don't wake me up. — John Green

I think it would be cool if you were writing a ransom note on your computer, if the paper clip popped up and said, 'Looks like you're writing a ransom note. Need help? You should use more forceful language, you'll get more money.' — Demetri Martin

So, I started keeping records. Every day I sat down to write, I would note the time I started, the time I stopped, how many words I wrote, and where I was writing on a spreadsheet — Rachel Aaron

I note however that this diary writing does not count as writing, since I have just re-read my year's diary and am much struck by the rapid haphazard gallop at which it swings along, sometimes indeed jerking almost intolerably over the cobbles. — Virginia Woolf

Before you deride the "mainstream media," note that it is no longer the mainstream. It is derision that is mainstream and easy, and actual journalism that is edgy and difficult. So try for yourself to write a proper article, involving work in the real world: traveling, interviewing, maintaining relationships with sources, researching in written records, verifying everything, writing and revising drafts, all on a tight and unforgiving schedule. — Timothy Snyder

The look that one directs at things, both outward and inward, as an artist, is not the same as that with which one would regard the same as a man, but at once colder and more passionate. As a man, you might be well-disposed, patient, loving, positive, and have a wholly uncritical inclination to look upon everything as all right, but as an artist your daemon constrains you to "observe", to take note, lightning fast and with hurtful malice, of every detail that in the literary sense would be characteristic, distinctive, significant, opening insights, typifying the race, the social or the psychological mode, recording all as mercilessly as though you had no human relationship to the observed object whatever. — Joseph Campbell

As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note. — Georges Bizet

My greatest strength as a writer is that I'm a storyteller. But, it was a long, hard struggle for me to make the transition from verbally telling stories to writing them. You'll note I don't dwell on descriptions in my writing, because I'm far more interested in telling the story. There are many better writers in this world, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone more passionate about stories than I am. — Debbie Macomber

Additionally, Liesl and Po is the embodiment of what writing has always been for me at its purest and most basic
not a paycheck, certainly; not an idea, even; and not an escape. Actually, it is the opposite of an escape; it is a way back in, a way to enter and make sense of a world that occasionally seems harsh and terrible and mystifying. (From the "Author's Note" at the end). — Lauren Oliver

The most successful critics are always scribbling things in their programs, largely because it gives them an important and industrious air. Also, it is interesting to try to figure out what you've written afterward. Last week, for instance, I made a very helpful note during the second act of a drama called "They Walk Alone." "Lanchstr get face stuck 1 these nights awful if," it seemed to say. — Wolcott Gibbs

The jacaranda in the courtyard has put on its bloom. This purple can't be ignored, it's like a tree singing. The walk down Londres Street to the market is a concert: the small jacaranda on the the corner hums the tuning note, then all others in the lane join in. — Barbara Kingsolver

Writing is the same as music. It's in how you phrase it, how you hold back the note, bend it, shape it, then release it. And what you don't play is as important as what you do say. — Robert Creeley

When you read a piece of writing that you admire, send a note of thanks to the author. — Sherman Alexie

I read a lot of books. Here are the books I'm using for my 9/11 project. [Wright gestures to three six-foot-long shelves of books.] As I read them I highlight certain passages. Then I have an assistant write down each quote on an index card and note where it came from. — Lawrence Wright

There is no formula to it because writing every song, for me, is a little journey. The first note has to lift you and make you go, 'What's this?' You play C, but why is it that one day it leads to G and it didn't yesterday? I don't know. It's everything. It's the walk you take in the morning, it's the night before, the meeting with people, landscapes, the chats, all of that evolves in some way into melody, but I'm not sure how it's going to happen. I'm dealing with the unknown all the time and that is exciting. — Enya

I've always felt that the performance of a raag resembles a novel - or at least the kind of novel I'm attempting to write. You know,' he continued, extemporizing as he went along, 'first you take one note and explore it for a while, then another to discover its possibilities, then perhaps you get to the dominant, and pause for a bit, and it's only gradually that the phrases begin to form and the tabla joins in with the beat ... and then the more brilliant improvisations and diversions begin, with the main theme returning from time to time, and finally it all speeds up, and the excitement increases to a climax. — Vikram Seth

If you've just had a brief conversation at an event, ask, "Is it all right if I drop you a note?" You can follow up with a question in writing. Also, periodically send your potential mentor or sponsor information that she will find insightful. When you have an accomplishment under your belt, let her know about it. — Kate White

Medical journals from 1905 to 1915 are rife with articles on "vibratory massage" and the many things it cures. Weakened hearts and floating kidneys. Hysterical cramp of the esophagus and catarrh of the inner ear. Deafness, cancer, bad eyesight. And lots and lots of prostate problems. A Dr. Courtney W. Shropshire, writing in 1912, was impressed to note that by means of "a special prostatic applicator, well lubricated, attached to the vibrator, introduced to the rectum" he was "able to empty the seminal vesicles of their secretions." Indeedy. Shropshire's patients returned every other day for treatment, no doubt also developing a relationship with the vibration machine. — Mary Roach

Note to myself - It is time for me to start taking my guitar lessons. One of my neighbor's singing and guitar strumming skills are so cool that I can't stop marveling at the music wafting around here. — Avijeet Das

How do I let the director know how obsessed I am and willing to do anything for the movie? Like, I wanted to write this one director a letter, so I wrote him a handwritten note. But then I was like, 'How many people are writing this guy handwritten letters? Is it going to seem cheesy? What do I do?' — Jennifer Lawrence

To be a writer is to embrace rejection as a way of life. — Dana Stabenow

Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be. — Margaret Atwood

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don't. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete. — Steven Pressfield

Note even Jonathan Swift would dare to write a satire in which politicians argued that - in a world where species are vanishing and more than a billion people are barely able to afford to eat - it would somehow be good for the planet to clear rain-forests to grow palm oil, or give up food-crop land to grow biofuels, solely so that people could burn fuel derived from carbohydrate rather than hydrocarbons in their cars, thus driving up the price of food for the poor. Ludicrous is too weak a word for this heinous crime. — Matt Ridley

But it was not the note that counted so much as the writing of it.
Just because it wouldn't last forever out there didn't mean it hadn't
existed. that's why I was there. I was there for a moment. And
because of a string of beautiful moments spent at that very same
place, moments I would keep inside me wherever I went. — Amanda Howells

Please excuse the torn edges of this note. I am writing to you from inside the shack the Baudelaire orphans were forced to live in while at Prufrock Preparatory School, and I am afraid that some of the crabs tried to snatch my stationery away from me. On Sunday night, please purchase a ticket for seat 10-J at the Erratic Opera Company's performance of the opera Faute de Mieux. During Act Five, use a sharp knife to rip open the cushion of your seat. There you should find — Lemony Snicket

A number of bloggers in economics and the financial sector have risen to prominence through the sheer strength of their work. Note it was not their family connections nor ties to Ivy League schools or elite banks, but rather the strength of their research, analysis and writing. — Barry Ritholtz

Iannis: [writing to Corelli] Antonio, I do not know if this letter will reach you, or even if you are alive. Perhaps someone else sent your record, and that is why we found no note. I would like to say that Pelagia is happy, but she is full of tears she will not let fall, and of a grief no doctor can mend. She blames herself for the pain we have suffered, and perhaps the same is true for you. You know I am not a religious man, but I believe this: if there is a wound, we must try to heal it. If there is someone whose pain we can cure, we must search till we find them. If the gods have chosen that we should survive, it will be for a reason. — Louis De Bernieres

Around 1980, I'd been writing short stories, all to no success; so I wrote a fan letter to Stephen King and asked "How long should it take an aspiring writer to either get published or know when to give up?" Lo and behold, King wrote back to me in long hand with blue flair pen on 14-inch paper, purveying a very nice, helpful note; in it he said my letter proved a "command of the language," that I should never give up, and that it would take years to succeed, not months. "That's cold comfort but it's the truth." This was the ultimate encouragement for a young writer to be who didn't know shit about the market. I took Mr. King's advice and actually sold my first novel little more than a year later. I'll always be copiously grateful for this advice, and it's the same advice I give aspiring writers now (along with the story of King's reply!). — Edward Lee