Write.table Without Quotes & Sayings

The most important rules that I ever adopted to help me in achieving my goals were those I learned from a very successful man who taught me to first write down the goal, and then to never leave the site of setting a goal without first taking some form of positive action toward its attainment. — Tony Robbins

He would like to be capable of writing as he thinks, quickly, without effort, the word as agile and dynamic as athletes in a race, jumping over hurdles, one after the other, go, go, go, flying towards the finishing post, faster than the disgust limping behind him. — Filippo Bologna

Enough already of Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault poured like ketchup over everything. Lacan: the French fog machine; a grey-flannel worry-bone for toothless academic pups; a twerpy, cape-twirling Dracula dragging his flocking stooges to the crypt. Lacan is a Freud T-shirt shrunk down to the teeny-weeny Saussure torso. The entire school of Saussure, inluding Levi-Strauss, write their muffled prose of people with cotton wool wrapped around their heads; they're like walking Q-tips. Derrida: a Gloomy Gus one-trick pony, stuck on a rhetorical trope already available in the varied armory of New Criticism. Derrida's method: masturbating without pleasure. It's a birdbrain game for birdseed stakes. Neo-Foucaldian New Historicism: a high-wax bowling alley where you score points just by knockng down the pins. — Camille Paglia

But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern research, was that grand figure of a Roman soldier, clad in complete armor; who, true to his duty, true to his proud name of a soldier of Rome, and full of the stern courage which had given to that name its glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect and unflinching, till the hell that raged around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could not conquer. We never read of Pompeii but we think of that soldier; we can not write of Pompeii without the natural impulse to grant to him the mention he so well deserves. Let us remember that he was a soldier
not a policeman
and so, praise him. Being a soldier, he staid,
because the warrior instinct forbade him to fly. Had he been a policeman he would have staid, also
because he would have been asleep. — Mark Twain

What I really do when I write you is follow myself, and I'm doing it right now: I'm following myself without knowing what it will lead me to. Sometimes following myself is so hard. Because of following something that's still so nebulous. Sometimes I end up stopping. — Clarice Lispector

I live well with very little things but not without my dignity — Rui M.

Next time we will look at this from a much more basic point of view and one antedating all zoology, which, glimpsed only a little after my twentieth year, made write in those days that what is most valuable in man is his eternal and almost divine discontent, a discontent which is a kind of love without a beloved, and like an ache which we feel in members of our body that we do not have. Man is the only being that misses he has never had. And the whole of what we miss, without ever having had it, is never what we call happiness. From this one could start a meditation on happiness, an analysis of that strange condition which makes man the only being who is unhappy for the very reason that he needs to be happy. That is, because he needs to be what he is not. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

The main thing is to WRITE. Some days it might be 2000 words. Some days you might tinker with two sentences until you get them just right. Both days belong in the writing life. Some days you may watch a 'Doctor Who' marathon or become immersed in a book that is so good you can't stop reading. Some days you may be in love or in mourning. Those days belong in the writing life, too. Live them without guilt. — L.K. Madigan

I certainly wanted to write a book that was honest about New Orleans without explaining it to death, so much so that the first draft contained references absolutely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't lived here for several years. — Poppy Z. Brite

[D]espite her alternative leanings, it turned out Crystal was not particularly psyco-babbly or airy-fairy or tree-huggy, as one might have expected.
In fact, the first thing she did was write a list. She said writing lists helped calm her down when she was stressed about anything because it put problems in order. You can look at a list of things and see how you can tackle each one separately without feeling sick about it, she said. Whereas if they all just stayed jumbled in your mind in one great bit sticky ball you never got to consider them individually.
She actually spoke a lot of sense for someone with toe rings and a Chinese tattoo. — Sarah-Kate Lynch

Jack shook his head. 'Books. What is it with women and books? My sisters were the same. They were always buying books for boys they fancied.'
Ellie bent down and picked up the stone and put it on the table. 'It's like sending a love letter without having to write it yourself,' she said softly. — Hazel Osmond

The poet must decide not to impose his feelings in order to write without sentimentality. — John Barton

I find the act of writing very painful. I can go a whole month without managing a single line, or write three days and nights straight, only to find the whole thing has missed the mark.
At the same time, though, I love writing. Ascribing meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually living it. — Haruki Murakami

One of my main wishes in wanting to write about my mother was to explore the impact of her death on my life, explore our relationship, think about the different versions of myself that I was with and without her. I also had the really strong wish to bring her to life for my children, who were born after she was gone. — Tracy K. Smith

I have learned to write about things that are personal without objectifying anybody or anything, and that's been an important lesson for me. It's useful not to dump on people while simultaneously expressing a truth or a feeling if it's necessary, without diluting the intensity of the lyric. — Martha Wainwright

The way I write is very much without kind of a goal. I have something I'm interested in and then I decide I'm going to explore it. I don't know where the characters are going to go, I don't know what the movie is going to do or what the screenplay is going to do. For me, that's the way to keep it alive. — Charlie Kaufman

When I left 'Being Human,' that was painful because the show was going on without me. But with 'Him & Her,' we finished on such a high together that if it is the end, it couldn't have stopped at a better time. But I hope with 'Him & Her' that we'll get another crack of the whip: that the writer might change his mind and write some more. — Russell Tovey

The sublime moment seems to be only a product of allowing yourself to get through, to get to a lot of stuff in your life, write about a lot of stuff and not edit yourself. That is a great lesson to learn for anybody that writes or creates in anyway, to be able to make something without being good or bad. — Jeff Tweedy

One cannot properly drink without self-deception: the lips have to deny the liquor that just passed down the throat. It was surely for the relief of drunkards that the Lord God did not write upon the stone tablets the commandment: thou shalt not lie. The word has to deny the addiction. Among the tribe of alcoholics, lying is a badge of honor - the truth is first an indiscretion, later an affront, and finally a source of despair. If you truly drink, you have to announce to all and sundry that you do not drink; if you admit you drink, that means you do not truly drink. True all-out drinking has to be concealed; anyone who reveals it is giving in, confessing to helplessness, and all that remains for him is weeping, the gnashing of teeth, and the 12 step program. — Jerzy Pilch

A man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if indeed such a man exists. — Bertrand Russell

Sometimes I'll write without the guitar or the piano, but most of the time I'll be playing and just improvising some words. And when I get something that sounds good, a line with a story in it, I'll try and tease it out and figure out where the story is going. — John Darnielle

You can write about other people and their ideas and life without having lived it, but even your perception of that is going to be colored by what you know and what you experience. And this is undeniable. — James Salter

Let's say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with. — Ernest Hemingway,

To speak, to write , without charm is to make utterances without reference to a reality outside oneself. It is an act devoid of the playfulness of art, without the attractive humility of one who know absolutely that others exist and therefore feels drawn to please them, because to give them an instant of pleasure is to acknowledge their existence. — Patricia Hampl

I did not set out to write another novel. One day I sat down with the thought of trying my hand at a piece of nonfiction, a personal memoir of youth, but over the next several weeks, without intending it, the work began evolving into what has become 'Tomcat in Love.' — Tim O'Brien

I can't imagine doing anything without being an improviser. I can't imagine trying to write or act or direct without what improvising offers you. — Marc Evan Jackson

It's hard to write a war story without thinking about the 'Iliad.' Because the 'Iliad' knows everything about war. — Chang-rae Lee

He was in an eddy again, a deep, lethargic gulf, without desire to work or write, love or dissipate. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I go to farmers' markets all the time. Field-to-table is so my thing. But none of the herbs at any of them comes close to island herbs. Those herbs make Quinnie food- well, those herbs and freshness. Quinnipeague was growing organic and cooking local before farm-to-table was a movement, but, still, we think of the herbs first. I can't write about island cooking without talking about them, but I can't not talk about the people, either. That's where you come in, Charlotte. You've eaten Dorey Jewett's lobster stew and Mary Landry's clam fritters, and you always loved the fruit compote that Bonnie Stroud brought to the Fourth of July dinner each year. These people are all still around. Each has a story. I want to include some in the book, but I'm better at writing about food than people. — Barbara Delinsky

It is a glorious thing, to be able to write with pen on paper instead of nail or hook into oak, to feel one's words flowing so smoothly from instrument to surface, without the barriers of friction or poor leverage, and yet its own subtle tactile pleasures as the nib scratches tiny channels into the sheet. And here, unlike in his cabin, here he feels no division between his mind and his hand, no errors in translation or static in the transmission: the words appearing on the page are the ones he has intended to put there, the images match the scenes in his mind, the sensations the very ones that warm his chest, prickle his scalp, push against his eyes. — Doug Dorst

I lie and repeat these words over to myself, and find that they are capital. Little by little others come and fit themselves to the preceding ones. I grow keenly wakeful. I get up and snatch paper and pencil from the table behind my bed. It was as if a vein had burst in me ; one word follows another, and they fit themselves together harmoniously with telling effect. Scenes piles on scene, actions and speeches bubble up in my brain, and a wonderful sense of pleasure empowers me. I write as one possessed, and fill page after page without a moment's pause — Knut Hamsun

Other people's words are so important. And then without warning they stop being important, along with all those words of yours that their words prompted you to write. Much of the excitement of a new novel lies in the repudiation of the one written before. Other people's words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you're going. — Zadie Smith

Her imperturbable self-confidence (Duchesse de Maine) caused Madame de Stael to write that the Duchesse believed in herself the same way she believed in God, without explanation or discussion. — Antonia Fraser

That you should write down valuable ideas that occur to you as soon as possible goes without saying: we sometimes forget even what we have done, so how much more what we have thought. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Nowadays ... deals are transactional rather than personal. Instead of placing your faith in a person, you get lawyers to write safeguards into the contract. This is an historic shift from a trust economy to a risk economy. But trust is not a dispensable luxury. It is the very basis of our social life. Many scholars believe that capitalism had religious roots because people could trust other people who, feeling that they were answerable to God, could be relied on to be honest in business. A world without trust is a lonely and dangerous place. — Jonathan Sacks

I got fed up with the human race, really. I got a very negative feeling about human potentials. And for a while, I thought I might write a book without any human beings in it whatsoever. — Michel Faber

Money, money, all is money! Could you write even a penny novelette without money to put heart in you? — George Orwell

People without hope do not write novels ... [Writing fiction] is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system. If the novelist is not sustained by a hope of money, then he must be sustained by a hope of salvation, or he simply won't survive the ordeal. — Flannery O'Connor

There would be a day - there must be a day - when he would come back to Gramarye with a new Round Table which had no corners, just as the world had none - a table without boundaries between the nations who would sit to feast there. The hope of making it would lie in culture. If people could be persuaded to read and write, not just to eat and make love, there was still a chance that they might come to reason. BUT — T.H. White

You can't just write and write and put things in a drawer. They wither without the warm sun of someone else's appreciation. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

A novel is not born of a single idea. The stories I've tried to write from one idea, no matter how terrific an idea, have sputtered out and died by chapter three. For me, novels have invariably come from a complex of ideas that in the beginning seemed to bear no relation to each other, but in the unconscious began mysteriously to merge and grow. Ideas for a novel are like the strong guy lines of a spider web. Without them the silken web cannot be spun. — Katherine Paterson

True, there
are those in our league who take even less time. But they don't do any research. They do a
handful of the more well-known spots, cruise through without eating a thing, write brief
comments. It's their business, not mine. If I may be perfectly frank, I doubt that many writers
take as many pains as I do at this level of reportage. It's the kind of work that can break you if
you're too serious about it, or you can kick back and do almost nothing. The worst of it is,
whether you're earnest or you loaf, the difference will hardly show in the finished piece. On the
surface. Only in the finer points can you find any hint of the distinction — Haruki Murakami

Daemonic compulsiveness can kill as easily as it can save.
The true novelist must be at once driven and indifferent. Van
Gogh never sold a painting in his life. Poe came close with
poetry and fiction, selling very little. Drivenness only helps if
it forces the writer not to suicide but to the making of splendid
works of art, allowing him indifference to whether or not the
novel sells, whether or not it's appreciated. Drivenness is trouble
for both the novelist and his friends; but no novelist, I
think, can succeed without it. Along with the peasant in the
novelist, there must be a man with a whip. — John Gardner

It is said that you can't write without a reader. The opposite holds true as well; you can't read without a writer. But if as a single, creative person you are one in the same, then, well ... problem solved! Great writing is born from that which we personally long to read. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Many have been deceived by outward appearances and have proceeded to write and teach about good works and how they justify without even mentioning faith ... Wearying themselves with many works, they never come to righteousness. — Martin Luther

Being tall when I was youngerl I was always a bit awkward. As a teenager, I was very, very thin, so I was very gangly and limby, and would sweep things off the table without realising how big my wingspan was - just out of control. A lot of women write to me and say, 'I'm six foot and exactly the same happens' - that's been lovely therapy. — Miranda Hart

People just didn't write songs that were so directly emotional in those days. They still don't. Part of Hank's [Williams] thing was that he was opening up about relationships between men and women in ways that nobody else did, and I think that's something that made him stand out so much. His songs are just so straightforward about these really deep feelings that are universal, but they're so hard to write about without sounding sappy or over the top. You think of men in that era - they didn't express themselves that way. — Michael McCaul

I'm fine here, Lenny. I'm discovering who I am without all my ornaments and accessories. It's quite a slow process, but a very useful one. Everybody ought to do the same at the end of their life. If I had any self-discipline I would beat my grandson to it and write my own memoirs. I have time, freedom, and silence, the three things I never had amidst all the noise of my earlier life. I'm preparing to die." "That won't — Isabel Allende

Being with Jody and Mark and Cal was beginning to weigh on my nerves, like a dull wooden block on the strings of a piano. I was afraid that at any moment my control would snap, and I would start babbling about how I couldn't read and couldn't write and how I must be just about the only person who had stayed awake for a solid month without dropping dead of exhaustion. — Sylvia Plath

I thought at 46 years old, I've been removed from the fashion industry for 10 years. I couldn't possibly write a model's book. That's for a 20-year-old. But I could say what I want to say without chastising the industry. — Iman

Don't you understand? There has to be a balance. A man can't be without power - it doesn't work like that. What was I going to do, write little books behind hers like a fucking echo? I needed something big. And this is big. Books on this thing will write themselves. — Lily King

I am an ordinary human being who is impelled to write poetry ... I still do feel that a poet has a duty to words, and that words can do wonderful things, and it's too bad to just let them lie there without doing anything with and for them. — Gwendolyn Brooks

When we see the human race, we must see before all else environment and food. Historians write about social change without taking these factors into account. This is why it is difficult for them to see the reasons decline and prosperity in society. — Michio Kushi

SOON was the first novel where I used a rough outline. Usually I have characters and an idea and write as a process of discovery. Like working without a net. — Jerry B. Jenkins

I don't know whether Asimov realized he was saying this as well, but as an old historical materialist, if only as an afterthought, he must have realized that he was saying too: No one here will ever look at you, read a word you write, or consider you in any situation, no matter whether the roof is falling in or the money is pouring in, without saying to him- or herself (whether in an attempt to count it or to discount it), 'Negro ... ' The racial situation, permeable as it might sometimes seem (and it is, yes, highly permeable), is nevertheless your total surround. Don't you ever forget it ... ! And I never have. — Samuel R. Delany

I believe all of my talents come from the Lord. All of my talents are God-given - that's how I was able to write music without any professional musical training. — Stan Freberg

I lost my wife twenty years ago. Sometimes I feel as if I have lived without her for a decade, and sometimes I feel as though I lost her just a minute before.

I write lost, but I have grown to hate that expression. She was not a set of keys or a hat. Losing her is the equivalent of saying that I have misplaced my lungs. — Cath Crowley

The bait's got a theory; the bait's finding a practice, working it out; the bait's going to write it down and she don't have to use words, she'll make signs, in blood, she's good at bleeding, boys, the vein's open, boys, the bait's got plenty, each month more and more without dying for a certain long period of her life, she can lose it or use it, she works in broad strokes, she makes big gestures, big signs; oh and honey there's so much bait around that there's going to be a bloodbath in the old town tonight, when the new art gets its start. — Andrea Dworkin

Books don't exist unless you read them. And it's a two way process - you write the book as you read it and you fill in the gaps. You discover it and you put the marks together and without you doing it they're just marks. — Samuel West

Natalie Lyalin is writing some of the best poems in the world. There is an evil in her gorgeous poem-hearts. She must have sold her heart to the devil to write like this - so beautiful, so funny and so strange. Her images stack and stack down the page without spilling, each line such a bombshell you'll start reading backward to the first line. These poems are like babies - they will pop out of trees. — Zachary Schomburg

It's like, you write a book, you want it to be well received, you want it to be at the top of the bestsellers list, but you have limited control over what happens. You can hire a publicist, you can do every interview, you can be prepared, but you have very little control over the marketplace. So you put it out there without attachment, so it has its own life. Everything is like that. — Dan Harris

(on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists. — Bertrand Russell

Don't allow people to define you based on reading the abstract of your story without even reading chapter 1. Continue to write the remaining chapters. — Assegid Habtewold

Without love, loyalty, desires, passion, courage, dignities, faith, beliefs and all the other ingredients that go into making the human soul something so elevated that only God knows its limits, we are only shells bobbing aimlessly in a calm sea of mediocrity ... And if you can figure that out, please write and explain it to me because you're a better man than I am. — Sylvester Stallone

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Plenty of Personality and Poise
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Must be a US citizen and available for training within 6 months.
If you feel you qualify
— Judy Blume

I never attempt to write any message or moral into a plot because I find it comes out a little contrived. If you tackle any slice of life faithfully then life will speak to people without you having to spell anything out. — Christian Cook

Despite my own doubts of being marketable or crushworthy, my goal was to write a record of peppy pop songs, hopefully without annoying anybody. — Stephen Malkmus

This book is entirely dedicated to my wife, Robin Sullivan.
Some have asked how it is I write such strong women without resorting to putting swords in their hands. It is because of her.
She is Arista.
She is Thrace.
She is Modina.
She is Amilia.
And she is my Gwen.
This series has been a tribute to her.
This is your book, Robin.
I hope you don't mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is while you're in the world.
ELTON JOHN, BERNIE TAUPIN — Michael J. Sullivan

Like musicians who can read and write complicated scores in a world without sounds, for us mathematics is a source of delight, excitement, and even controversy which are hard to share with non mathematicians. In our small micro-cosmos we should ever seek the right balance between competition and solidarity, criticism and empathy, exclusion and inclusion. — Gil Kalai

Am I sure that there is no mind behind our existence and no mystery anywhere in the universe? I think I am. What joy, what relief there would be, if we could declare so with complete conviction. If that were so I could wish to live for ever. How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own rituals the meaning for his existence and write the rules whereby he lives. — Thornton Wilder

In the narrative of his third voyage Columbus wrote: "For I believe that the earthly Paradise lies here, which no one can enter except by God's leave." As for the people of this land, Peter Martyr would write as early as 1505: "They seem to live in that golden world of which old writers speak so much, wherein men lived simply and innocently without enforcement of laws, without quarreling, judges, or libels, content only to satisfy nature." Or as the ever present Montaigne would write: "In my opinion, what we actually see in these nations not only surpasses all the pictures which the poets have drawn of the Golden Age, and all their inventions representing the then happy state of mankind, but also the conception and desire of philosophy itself. — Paul Auster

Book writing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Anyone who decides to write a book must expect to invest a lot of time and effort without any guarantee of success. Books do not write themselves and they do not sell themselves. Authors write and promote their books. — Dan Poynter

Government reporters may cover City Hall. Education reporters may write about schools and school boards. Science writers may report on asteroids one day, HIV vaccine experiments the next, sonar technology the next, a universe without boundaries. — Deborah Blum

To write rhythmic prose one must go deep into oneself and find the anonymous and multiple rhythm of the blood. Prose needs to be built like a cathedral. There, one is truly without a name, without ambition, without help; on scaffoldings, alone with one's consciousness. — Rainer Maria Rilke

When you are a free and independent writer, without employer, without hours or deadlines, you have to play little games to force yourself into the actual writing. For me, one game is to announce...that I have finally decided on my next book, that I am ready to write it...to put my pride on the line. — Irving Wallace

Every good story needs a good ending. Don't write the beginning of a novel without knowing the end of it. — A.D.Y. Howle

I would write my editorials using a manual typewriter in pitch-black darkness ... I would produce the whole thing without having seen the text. — Charles Krauthammer

Ritsu: Please, Onii-san, please write with takoyaki power!
Mitsuru: Yes, sensei! With ikyayaki or takoyaki or whatever it takes! Write quickly, without hesitation! Ah ... Um ... W-what is takoyaki power?
Ritsu: Well, that is
! When Shigure-niisan eats takoyaki, he transforms into a great warrior ...
Shigure: No I don't. — Natsuki Takaya

I've seen a range of children's personalities, so it's easier to write about them without patronising them, I think. — Sarah Pinborough

There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth. — Blaise Pascal

Nasty Gal Obsessed: We keep the customer at the center of everything we do. Without customers, we have nothing. Own It: Take the ball and run with it. We make smart decisions, put the business first, and do more with less. People Are Important: Reach out, make friends, build trust. No Assholes: We leave our egos at the door. We are respectful, collaborative, curious, and open-minded. Learn On: What we're building has never been built before - the future is ours to write. We get excited about growth, take intelligent risks, and learn from our mistakes. Have Fun and Keep It Weird. — Sophia Amoruso

Many become popular because they speak and write with a reductionist style that brings the complex and disturbing down into canned formulas of what spiritual growth is supposedly all about. Dozens of such New Age authors could bring their works together into one large volume entitled, "How To Become Aware of the Depths of Your Being Without Disturbing the Routine of Your Comfortable Lifestyle. — Lew Paz

Without reserve, I can say that my entire identity is in the books I write. — Elena Ferrante

My mind still buzzed with the cares of a busy day; I sat on without noting how twilight
was deepening into dark.
Suddenly light stirred across the gloom and touched me as with a finger.
I lifted my head and met the gaze of the full moon widened in wonder like a child's. It held my eyes for long, and I felt as though a love-letter had been secretly dropped in at my window.
And ever since my heart is breaking to write for answer something fragrant as Night's unseen flowers - great as her declaration spelt out in nameless stars. — Rabindranath Tagore

If you want to write something completely unique, you will probably fail or at best write something without redeeming value. The mind works in certain patterns: the mind organizes facts in story form; it is your commonality with that body of human thought that makes a good book, not its estrangement from the common values that humans share. — Janet Morris

You are wrong if you think you cannot live without love. I cannot live without it. I do not mean that I go into a decline, develop odd symptoms, became a caricature. I mean that I cannot live well without it. I cannot think or act or speak or write or even dream with any kind of energy in the absence of love. I feel excluded from the living world. I become cold, fish-like, immobile. I implode. — Anita Brookner

Hey, Meg," she said without preamble. I need you to write a letter of recommendation for me. I'm applying for grad school."
Meghann screamed into the phone. "Oh, my God! I'm so proud of you. I'm hanging up now; I have to draft a letter that makes my best friend sound like da Vinci in a bra and panties. — Kristin Hannah

I have no reason to sit home and write songs all day without going out and playing for the folks. And I have no reason to go play for the folks unless I'm writing new songs so they can sort of feed off one another. And I just try to do the best I can. — Guy Clark

It's impossible to write about Native life without humor-that's how people maintain sanity. — Louise Erdrich

Poets to Come
POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
Arouse! Arouse
for you must justify me
you must answer.
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you, and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you. — Walt Whitman

Without an audience, all your dreams will not come true at all, because you need an audience to write new songs and continue to do music. — Rokia Traore

It was a piece of advice only, and aimed at myself as much, I suppose, as at you. - For those of easy tongues, she said. Remember, some live all their lives without discovering this truth; that the noblest and most terrible power we possess is the power we have, each of us, over the chance-met, the stranger, the passer-by outside your life and your kin. Speak, she said, as you would write: as if your words were letters of lead, graven there for all time, for which you must take the consequences. And take the consequences. — Dorothy Dunnett

It's rare that a good writer will sit down and write a good script. Writers are greedy too, and they don't want to work without getting paid. But quality will find its way out. — Richard Gere

Business is very personal. For me, everything is extremely personal. With actors, the fact that I write helps, because when you say to an actor "Oh I want you to do it a little bit more ... ," without saying what you want more of, then the actor doesn't know what to do. But if you can put into words exactly what you want, then the experience of writing is helpful with that. — Marjane Satrapi

Naturally I feel no shame in writing these things because of the time which separates the moment when they are written
when only I can see them
from the moment when they will be read by other people, a moment which I feel will never come. By then I could have had an accident or died; a war or a revolution could have broken out. This delay makes it possible for me to write today, in the same way I used to lie in the scorching sun for a whole day at sixteen, or make love wihout contraceptives at twenty: without thinking about the consequences — Annie Ernaux

For hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often, some persons would say, write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission. The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them. — Tom Glazer

Tales of ordinary characters would appeal to a larger class , but I have no wish to make such an appeal . The opinions of the masses are of no interest to me , for praise can truly gratify only when it comes from a mind sharing the author's perspective . There are probably seven persons in all , who really like my work and they are enough . I should write even if I were the only patient reader , for my aim is merely self expression . I could not write about ' ordinary people ' because I am not in the least interested in them . Without interest there can be no art . Man's relations to man do not captivate my fancy . It is man's relations to the cosmos - to the unknown - which alone arouses in me the spark of creative imagination . — H.P. Lovecraft

I do sit down every day and make myself write. I want 2,000 words every day or 3 single-space pages a day. I think if you are on a deadline, you have to be disciplined. If you turn things in late, you will find yourself without a contract. — Michelle Moran

How would he write without her? [The buried awareness of how completely her hands reached into his work; don't look, Lotto. It'd be like looking at the sun.] — Lauren Groff

Life isn't life without real butter. — A.D. Posey