Writing Legacy Quotes & Sayings

A writer doesn't dream of riches and fame, though those things are nice. A true writer longs to leave behind a piece of themselves, something that withstands the test of time and is passed down for generations. — C.K. Webb

Our historical bequest is sublime. I have inherited a fragmented but highly creative
exile and, since 1948, a home. I don't know that I want to settle there. I prefer the
creative spur of exile. () But wherever I am I shall be Jewish, and that sound will
inform every syllable I write. I am blessed with a long ancestry of wisdom, prophecy,
and promise, a line of overwhelming creative achievements, courage, humor, and,
above all, a dogged and chronic permanence, the greatest legacy of all. — Bernice Rubens

I started my career in journalism and researched outlaw motorcycle club culture extensively for my stories. This included talking to people in club life, many of whom answered questions for me throughout the writing process. The Reaper's Legacy manuscript was reviewed and corrected by a woman attached to an outlaw MC. — Joanna Wylde

Words often outlive the people who create them. — Amy Neftzger

I want to... have fun with writing again. Enjoy my work, enjoy playing with the language and characters like a sculptor plays with clay. But there's this manic focus on numbers--how many books have you written and how many have you sold and it's all push, push, push, and no time for reflection--but at heart, books are about dreaming... which is just the opposite. So I don't know...
M.M. Bennetts comment to Nancy Bilyeau as related in Nancy's tribute "M.M. Bennetts: The Closest Friend I Never Met — M.M. Bennetts

Language allows us to reach out to people, to touch them with our innermost fears, hopes, disappointments, victories. To reach out to people we'll never meet.
It's the greatest legacy you could ever leave your children or your loved ones:
The history of how you felt. — Simon Van Booy

As the leaves randomly fell, she contemplated how they sacrificially gave up their essence to sustain new life. Or was it the tree's sacrifice? Each leaf was a part of Gaia's play. Their final act: to decompose so a new level of soil could be made, an earthen writing tablet for the next layer of history to be recorded. One generation became the groundwork for the next. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Nothing was exempt, not even the leaves. — Jesikah Sundin

Writing songs with Brian and performing them with Al Jardine, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, David Marks, Bruce Johnston and many other brilliant musicians over the years is my legacy, and something of which I am very proud and protective. — Mike Love

Great writing is always rewriting or revisionism, and is founded on a reading that clears space for the self. — Harold Bloom

As a writer of philosophy, it's good to ask oneself, 'Will I still believe this a week from now, or months, or even years? — Criss Jami

Like water our ideals for writing what seems at first to be a calling to pen a masterpiece, it at first can be pure, fluid even (words can come easily) but we also have to learn to work with what our eyes glaze over as weak substitutes, words that we think have no substance to what we are learning towards. What is every poet's intention? Their intention is to forge, nullify, create, defend, fill the reader with the awe and inspiration that every poet themselves craves. They want to carve a name for themselves in the annals of history, leave a not so quiet legacy behind. Poets want immortality or rather they want their words to become immortal. Perhaps even Marlowe and Shakespeare had discussions about this. — Abigail George

Writing is a lifelong disease.

Once contracted, the only prescription is to write constantly in whatever form to express your condition, in whatever construction to carry your words beyond you. — J.R. Tompkins

A childhood filled with adventures, happiness and unabated love.
If only I could remember ... — Lynda Fisher

Got good news and bad news for you, Mr. President. The good news is that Chief Justice John Roberts just saved your legacy and, perhaps, your presidency by writing for the Supreme Court majority to rule health care reform constitutional. — Ron Fournier

There is a terrible garrulousness in most American writing, legacy of the old Frontier. — Gore Vidal

There are two motives for writing a book: one, that you may save what you know, the other, that you may share what you know with the public. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Your story must told.
Live a life legacy- written book or notes.
This will be there for many generations to know your rich experiences and knowledge. — Lailah Gifty Akita

We should protect our legacy of a free church in a free state. We ought to pray and work for a "quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty" (1 Tim. 2:2 kjv). But that is not the ultimate sign of our success. It is better for our future generations to be willing to go to jail - for the right reasons - than to exchange the gospel of the kingdom for a mess of Esau's pottage. Sometimes jails filled with hymn-singing, letter-writing, gospel-preaching Christians can do extraordinary things. — Russell D. Moore

My writing legacy would be my true depiction of life; exploring the entire colorful spectrum of people, both good and bad, capturing it in words and exposing it to all cultures in a respectful manner - In a way that would stand the test of time. — Diane Martin

Since language is the only tool with which writers can reflect and shape a culture, it must be transformed into art. Language is not a limitation on the art of literature; it is a glorification. It has been the scaffolding inside which nations and philosophies have been built, and the language of literature has added the ornamental pediment by which the culture is remembered. — E.L. Konigsburg

I've always been humble and this even humbled me even more to definitely get a second chance at my career. There are still chapters I'm writing in this legacy. — Darrelle Revis

Even if we grant that digital natives think and learn somewhat differently than older generations, we may be doing them a disservice to de-emphasize 'legacy' content such as reading, writing, and logical thinking, or to say that the methodologies we have used in the past are no longer relevant ... Digital immigrants and natives alike are bombarded with vast volumes of information in today's electronic society, which ... calls for an even greater emphasis on critical thinking and research skills
the very sort of 'legacy' content that teachers have focused on since classical times — Timothy VanSlyke

Please think about your legacy, because you're writing it every day. — Gary Vaynerchuk

Every line we succeed in publishing today - no matter how uncertain the future to which we entrust it - is a victory wrenched from the powers of darkness. — Walter Benjamin

In this world where I sit at my desk writing these words, people die, they pass on, people are mortal. In the cyber world we inhabit they do not. — Aysha Taryam

Just because you're breathing, doesn't mean you're alive. — Carew Papritz

My purpose in beginning the John Wimber biography project was to honor his rich legacy of teaching, his extraordinary character, and the positive & beneficial impact his life has had on my journey as a 'follower of Christ'. I esteem John Wimber's teachings, writing, and impact upon the Body of Christ to be equal with that of C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, John F. Banks, D.L. Moody, and Leanne Payne. — R. Alan Woods

Read as much as you write. Go out and meet other writers. Look for stories in everything around you - music, movies, family, strangers, your bus ride to work, and of course the streets. Also - keep moving forward, keep creating new things. Leave evidence of yourself in this world. Imagine what your legacy could be and try to create it. — Kevin Sampsell

Inside of all of us there is the need and the desire to be heard, to have our innermost thoughts, feelings and desires expressed for others to hear, to see and to understand. We all want to matter to someone, to leave a mark. Writers just take those thoughts, feelings and desires and express them in such a way that the reader not only reads them but feels them as well. — Vicktor Alexander

One [of the two ideas for PROOF] was to write about two sisters who are quarreling over the legacy of something left behind by their father. The other was about someone who knew that her parent had had problems of mental illness [and that] she might be going through the same thing. — David Auburn

Why readers should support indie authors
9/9/2015

Guest post on Maggie James Blog by Samuel Marquis

Readers should support authors of any stripe for only one reason: great writing


"So why should readers support indie and traditional legacy authors? For only one reason: good solid writing. Craftsmanship. Actual hard work, sacrifice, and talent coming together into an amalgam of significance. — Samuel Marquis

One Archeology and Decipherment
Two History: Heroes, Kings, and Ensi's
Three Society: The Sumerian City
Four Religion: Theology, Rite, and Myth
Five Literature: The Sumerian Belles-Lettres
Six Education: The Sumerian School
Seven Character: Drives, Motives, and Values
Eight The Legacy of Sumer
APPENDIXES
A. The Origin and Development of the Cuneiform System of Writing
B. The Sumerian Language
C. Votive Inscriptions
D. Sample Date-Formulas
E. Sumerian King List
F. Letters
G. Dit lla's (court decisions)
H. Lipit-Ishtar Law Code
1. Farmers' Almanac
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY — Samuel Noah Kramer

Our children are an integral component of our stories as we are of theirs and, therefore, each child acts as the knighted messengers to carry their forebears' stories into the future. To deprive our children of the narrative cells regarding the formation of the ozone layer that rims the atmosphere of our ancestors' saga and parental determination of selfhood is to deny them of the sacred right to claim the sanctity of their heritage. Accordingly, all wrinkled brow natives are chargeable with the sacrosanct obligation of telling their kith and kin the memorable story of the scenic days they spent as children of nature splashing about in their naked innocence in the brook of infinite time and space. We must scrupulous document our family's history as well as scrawl out our personal story. — Kilroy J. Oldster

In music, recording, writing, photography, design, film-making and any other creative endeavour, it may be true that anyone can do it, but it is not quite as true as punk sometimes seemed to suggest that anyone can do it in a way that is appreciated by others. The key point is that, without determination and application, talent and ideas are just unrealised potential. That lesson-there for anyone who wishes to learn it-is perhaps punk's , and the Clash's, greatest legacy. — Marcus Gray

My words will be my legacy, etched in heartfelt honesty upon the pages of time. — Callum McLaughlin

Your book goes places you may never go and helps people you may never meet — Bernard Kelvin Clive

I think the tendency to over-explain and over describe is one of the most common failings in fantasy. It's an unfortunate piece of Tolkien's legacy. Don't get me wrong, Tolkien was a great worldbuilder, but he got a little caught up describing his world at times, at the expense of the overall story. — Patrick Rothfuss