Writing Power Quotes & Sayings

Everyone tells you to write what you know. It's the tried-and-true advice every writer hears at some point in her career. But to take my writing to a deeper level, I've found that a better practice is to simply write what frightens you, haunts you, even. I now keep a sign on the bulletin board in my office that reads: 'Write What Scares You.' I've learned that tapping into the hard stuff - whether it's the fear of loss or a boogeyman lurking in childhood memories - is what ultimately gives a story the power to leap off the page and grab you by the collar. — Sarah Jio

Writing must always have intention because words have power. — Suheir Hammad

Writing has power, but its power has no vector. Writers can stir the mind, but they can't direct it. Time changes things, God changes things, the dictators change things, but writers can't change anything. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

It's so much work to make a movie, and for me it has to get me off my butt. To get me actually writing you have to strike something inside, you have to hit a power main to get the energy. You have to strike something you care about. — Rian Johnson

Punctuation is a fabulous tool for controlling your reader - you even get to control where they breathe. That's what I call power! — Nicola Morgan

The State of the Union has become, under presidents of both parties, a political pep rally degrading to everyone. The judiciary and uniformed military should never attend. And Congress, by hosting a spectacle so monarchical in structure (which is why Thomas Jefferson sent his thoughts to Congress in writing) deepens the diminishment of the legislative branch as a mostly reactive servant of an overbearing executive. — George F. Will

One of the many lessons I hope I've learned is how much I underestimated people, their open-mindedness and their willingness to understand. I think, moreover, I underestimated the degree to which everyone has a story. So my advice, for whatever it's worth, is to trust readers, trust the truth and trust the power of storytelling. — Jeannette Walls

The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand. — Wislawa Szymborska

To sit down so often with nothing to say,-to say something so often, almost without consciousness of saying and without any remembrance or having said,-is a power of which I will not violate my modesty by boasting; but I do not believe everyone has it. — Michael Kelahan

The best ending ever, for a science fiction book - or any novel, now that I think about it - was in Rendezvous With Rama. You know that you're at the end of the book and yet, there is no resolution. Then he hits you with those last six words. Better yet, the power is in the very last word. Wow! — John Gaver

I tell people to write the stories that you're afraid to talk about, the stories you wish you'd forget, because those have the most power. Those are the ones that have the most strength when you give them as a testimony. — Sandra Cisneros

Book authors are in high demand for speaking engagements and appearances; they are the new 'celebrity' and celebrities gain access. Authors not only make money from royalties or book advances but from their keynotes, presentations and strategically branded product lines. This includes entrepreneurial ideas for you to extend yourself beyond just writing and prepares you to add speaking and consulting to your revenue stream. You have to begin to look outside book sales and towards the speaking market. There are radio, interviews, news, television, small channel television keynotes, lectures, seminars and workshops. These types of events have the possibility to be much more lucrative than just selling books. In essence, the book builds and brands you in the public eye. It gives you credibility and the opportunity to be more than you are. It enables you to now be a voice, a teacher, a leader, an expert - after all, you wrote the book on it! — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

Words written fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, can have as much of this power today as ever they had it then to come alive for us and in us and to make us more alive within ourselves. That, I suppose, is the final mystery as well as the final power of words: That not even across great distances of time and space do they ever lose their capacity for becoming incarnate. And when these words tell of virtue and nobility, when they move closer to that truth and gentleness of spirit by which we become fully human, the reading of them is sacramental; and a library is as holy a place as any temple is holy because through the words which are treasured in it the Word itself becomes flesh again and again and dwells among us and within us, full of grace and truth.
Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember, in an essay called The Speaking and Writing of Words. — Frederick Buechner

Roger Ebert was such a champion of underrepresented filmmakers. He was a very big deal to me. It shows the power of critics. People who write about film, like you, can really affect the confidence of a young filmmaker. He did that for me, so it was such a pleasure to have an opportunity to talk about Roger in the movie. — Ava DuVernay

There's writing power in one word sentences and one sentence paragraphs. Wise authors use them. -Judith Briles — Judith Briles

The play is one of the very few pieces of great dramatic and comic writing that I have read in a long, long time. I was drawn to it because of the power of the writing, which gives me the actor a chance to explore many facets of myself. — Linda Lavin

Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling - I don't think it's any of that - it's helpless ... it's absence of control - and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that - I have no use for it whatsoever.
[Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.] — Toni Morrison

If I were to choose between the power of writing a poem and the ecstasy of a poem unwritten, I would choose the ecstasy. It is better poetry. — Kahlil Gibran

A goal that is not in writing is like cigarette smoke: It drifts away and disappears. It is vague and insubstantial. It has no force, effect, or power. But a written goal becomes something that you can see, touch, read, and modify if necessary. — Brian Tracy

His copy was full of lofty echoes: Greek Tragedy; Damocle's sword; manna from heaven; the myth of Sisyphus; the last of the Mohicans; hydra-headed and Circe-voiced; experiments with truth; discovery of India; biblical resonance; the lessons of Vedanta; the centre does not hold; the road not taken; the mimic men; for whom the bell tolls; a hundred visions and revisions; the power and the glory; the heart of the matter; the heart of darkness; the agony and the ecstasy; sands of time; riddle of the Sphinx; test of tantalus; murmurs of mortality; Falstaffian figure; Dickensian darkness; ... — Tarun J. Tejpal

Topical-sketch writing were incredibly rational and well reasoned: don't do a joke if the subject doesn't deserve it. An ad hominem attack on someone might get you a cheap laugh, but it doesn't earn you any long-term trust. The biggest rule was: you attack whoever's in power. Don't bring your personal bias to the table. — Michael Schur

I think if you're writing about cricket, you're obviously writing about power, because cricket is such a loaded sport, much more so than soccer. — Joseph O'Neill

Zhou," Biyu said, when Sabaa paused, "before the Jade Emperor, humans were just like the beasts in the field. We ate, lived and reproduced, but we were going nowhere. The universe is order in all its perfection, stagnant and unchanging. The wars set us free. Free to change, to learn, to adapt, to become more than we were. To do that, we sacrificed order for a measure of chaos, of challenge. It let some people, men and women, do evil, but even that inspired many more to do good. Medicines, writing, music, architecture, all the accomplishments of your Empire came at a high price, but it was worth paying. Tonight we reaffirm that fact. Without the power we grant the Jade Emperor from the realms we represent, we would lose all that we have gained. The universe would reassert its control. Over the years, order would take charge once more and progress would end. Given time, our race would slide back into the beasts we were once. It is something we could not survive. — G.R. Matthews

Fantasy fiction is essentially about the concept of power; great fantasy fiction is about people who find it at great cost or lose it tragically; mediocre fantasy fiction is about people who have it and never lose it but simply wield it. — Stephen King

As an activist, you do find yourself directed more toward public action. But I've always tried to use stories from my own life in my writing for instance. It has always been clear to me that the stories of each other's lives are our best textbooks. Every social justice movement that I know of has come out of people sitting in small groups, telling their life stories, and discovering that other people have shared similar experiences. So, if we've shared many experiences, then it probably has something to do with power or politics, and if we unify and act together, then we can make a change. — Gloria Steinem

Qualities absolutely necessary for a historian: (1) Imagination. (2) Prejudice. (3) The power of writing your own biography at the same time. — Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Wesley Stace has always been the only genuinely gifted fiction writer who also happens to be a rock star, but Wonderkid is the book he was born to write. And if you prefer your novels brazen, poignant and hilarious, as I do, you were born to read it. Like a great show, this will stay with you long after the last cymbal crash and power strum. — Sam Lipsyte

To write does not mean to convert the real into words but to make the power of the word real. — Augusto Roa Bastos

When I started to learn how to read, I discovered the same kind of power. I could create an environment that I didn't have, and I could order this environment in the way that I couldn't in my actual life. Then, when I learned to write, I learned that I could do this not only for myself, but for other people. I could create whole things that were believable, at least to myself, at that point. And in this way, I began to wield an authority and a power that I had not had before. In other words, every child goes through this. Some pick football and some pick the library. I picked the library. — Donald Richie

As a German philosopher writing in the aftermath of the Nazi regime, Marcuse understood the sleep inducing force of indoctrination, its power to make people forget and forfeit their own real interests. "The fact that the vast majority of the population accepts, and is made to accept, this society does not render it less irrational and less reprehensible," he wrote. "The distinction between true and false consciousness, real and immediate interest still is meaningful." — Daniel Pinchbeck

Of riches it is not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be remembered that he who has money to spare has it always in his power to benefit others, and of such power a good man must always be desirous. — Samuel Johnson

The problem in society is not kids not knowing science. The problem is adults not knowing science. They outnumber kids 5 to 1, they wield power, they write legislation. When you have scientifically illiterate adults, you have undermined the very fabric of what makes a nation wealthy and strong. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

It gives him spiritual freedom. To him life is a tragedy and by his gift of creation he enjoys the catharsis a purging of pity and terror, Which Aristotle tells is the object of art.
Everything is transformed by his power into material and by writing it he can overcome it. Everything is grist to his mill.
... The artist is the only free man. — W. Somerset Maugham

A computer is the most incredible tool we've ever seen. It can be a writing tool, a communications center, a supercalculator, a planner, a filer and an artistic instrument all in one, just by being given new instructions, or software, to work from. There are no other tools that have the power and versatility of a computer. — Steve Jobs

Writers have a rare power not given to anyone else: we can bore people long after we are dead. — Sinclair Lewis

Learn to write by doing it. Read widely and wisely. Increase your word power. Find your own individual voice though practicing constantly. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and learn to express that experience in words. — P.D. James

The good writer, the great writer, has what I have called the three S's: the power to see, to sense, and to say. That is, he is perceptive, he is feeling, and he has the power to express in language what he observes and reacts to. — Lawrence Clark Powell

Many of our students want to do what they have done and that has made them successful thus far in their lives: play by the rules, and do what is expected. But as much social science research and writing by Malcolm Gladwell, among others, make clear, the rules are mostly created by those already in power so obtaining power often entails standing out and breaking rules and social conventions. — Jeffrey Pfeffer

Your intention is for readers to benefit from your experiences and avoid the costly and time consuming mistakes you may have made. You want to help your readers know the short cuts and what you would have avoided, and why. As you write, keep a clear sense of why writing this is important to you, but also share your why within the body of the book. Why do your readers need to take the steps you describe? Are you saving them time, money, resources? Why did you start your journey to begin with? Did you want to change the world or get from point "A" to point "B"? Why did you keep going even when it was difficult? Was there a light at the end of the tunnel, a reward at the end? Why should they hang in there? All of these things will work magically if implemented correctly and consistently. — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

Life has a vendetta against writers. It does everything in it's power to get in the way of our craft. Maybe it thinks we embellish too much? — Hannah Harding

Why certainly, words possess power. They do! But releasing their magic requires combining and arranging those words in the right order. — Richelle E. Goodrich

All we are doing are self-portraits. As simple that. We accumulate knowledge and wisdom and power, and we get our hearts broken, and we write. We write for others to absorb what took us so long to understand. — Cristian Mihai

There is a political process which we are trying to achieve through what is called the Vienna Group. That involves the establishment of a governing council, which is to take power away from Bashar Assad, to write a constitution and to open the way for elections. It is important that Bashar leaves in the beginning, not at the end of the process. This will make the transition happen with less death and destruction. — Adel Al-Jubeir

This is the paradox of the power of literature: it seems that only when it is persecuted does it show its true powers, challenging authority, whereas in our permissive society it feels that it is being used merely to create the occasional pleasing contrast to the general ballooning of verbiage. — Italo Calvino

It is dangerous to leave written that which is badly written.
A chance word, upon paper, may destroy the world. Watch carefully and erase, while the power is still yours, I say to myself, for all that is put down, once it escapes, may rot its way into a thousand minds, the corn become a black smut, and all libraries, of necessity, be burned to the ground as a consequence.
Only one answer: write carelessly so that nothing that is not green will survive. — William Carlos Williams

Writing your book is not the end all of your strategy. It is a powerful catalyst that will push you to the top of your game. You see, something magical happens when you write your book and this is the best place to mention it because a sale happens when your book is complete. You sell yourself on the idea that you are more than you previously believed yourself to be. You get to experience that "I did it" moment where your mind releases these wonderful stimulators that make you feel awesome. You see yourself in a different way and this opens up a greater opportunity for accomplishment, achievement, and success. — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

You have a great advantage as a writer, Monsieur,' said Poirot. 'You can relieve your feelings by expedient of the printed word. You have the power of the pen over your enemies. — Agatha Christie

I have never been able to write with anything more than the left hand of my mind; the right hand has always been engaged in something to do with personal relationships. I don't complain, because I think my left hand's power, as much as it has, is due to its knowledge of what my right hand is doing. — Rebecca West

Hiresha felt something she struggled to describe. Power and possibility swirled within her, along with a a sense of gasping potential in each moment. When she could a find a name for it, tears beaded her eyes. I am awake. — A.E. Marling

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. — C.S. Lewis

A thousand things to be written had I time: had I power. A very little writing uses up my capacity for writing. — Virginia Woolf

The power of the
journalist is great, but he is entitled neither to respect nor admiration because of
that power unless it is used aright. — Theodore Roosevelt

Just recognizing and naming that many of the things we treat as historical fact are stories can help erode their power over our sense of identity and thinking. If they are stories rather than "truth," we can write new stories that better represent the country we aspire to be. Our new stories can be about diverse people working together to overcome challenges and make life better for all, about figuring out how to live sustainably on this one planet we share, and on deep respect for cooperation, fairness, and equity instead of promoting hyper-competitive individualism. — Annie Leonard

The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass ... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests. — Iain Banks

For me alone Don Quixote was born and I for him. His was the power of action, mine of writing. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

When we're unaware that we share the power to co-create reality with the universe itself, that power slips away from us, causing our dream to become a nightmare. We begin to feel we're the victims of an unknown and frightening creation that we're unable to influence, and events seem to control and trap us. The only way to end this dreadful reality is to awaken to the fact that it too is a dream - and then recognize our ability to write a better story, one that the universe will work with us to manifest. — Alberto Villoldo

Novel writing is World Building & Word Weaving (Neil Postman's terms). — J.M. Varner

Those in power write the history while those who suffer write the songs. — Frank Harte

'Thank you power' is writing down the moments that are good in your life so that you can go back and reflect on them - so you've got this sort of repository of good stuff in your past. — Deborah Norville

Good girls like myself need subversion. Being solemn, I aspire to comedy. Being a novelist, I aspire to the musical. Being organized, I aspire to luminous chaos. Loving the power of grammar and the fine distinctions of language, I seek the part of the mind I didn't know was there, the part 'sheer,' 'no-manfathomed,' 'cliffs of fall. — Janet Burroway

Then as now the PC held a curious power over restless, analytical people. To start with, the computer carried a psychological appeal not unlike that of an automobile. Both machines were objects of intense attachment for many of their owners - feelings of attachment that went well beyond the utility of the machines. While illustrating the way in which people can form emotional bonds with tools, the symbolisms of the automobile and the PC differed in an important way. The realm of the automobile extended no further than that of fantasy and enjoyment. The PC, by contrast, was a medium for creation. The utility of a PC arose directly from its software. Writing software required little money and, surprisingly, scant experience. — G. Pascal Zachary

A person can escape an ingrained pattern of mental incapacity or 'non compos mentis' ("no power of the mind") by reading, writing, thinking, and studying their environment for telling external determinates that will shape a journey of the mind, body, and soul. — Kilroy J. Oldster

There is no reticence nor any limit to a 'Majique.' Only the unwillingness of the mind to open itself to the limitless power of possibilities that exist within the unbelievable. — Rob Shepherd

Novelists have, on the average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdale's department store. Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time. — Kurt Vonnegut

Slowly I discovered that writing was my way of coping with chaos and my cry of freedom, my homage to beauty. Because stories have the power to denounce, to teach, to inspire, sometimes to heal. That was a kind of epiphany and so I decided that being a writer would be my way to keep on keeping on and that words would be my bullets, my answers to the Weapons of Mass Deception. From that day on my conscience was at ease and growing old more endurable. And I knew I could 'look up and see the sky'. — Vittorio Vandelli

What happened was that sometimes I was, from a young age, put in the theater to watch movies because they kept me quiet and they kept me entertained, and they got me out from under the feet of my parents. So from a very early age, I went to the movies and I soon grew to prefer the life of the movies to my own life. The reality that the movies offered was preferable to the reality that I was experiencing. I became a child movie addict. I would go in with great pleasure and I'd never look at what was playing
what was playing was unimportant. The fact was that I was entering a new world, an environment where not only was it much more attractive than my life was ordinarily, but also I could manipulate it to an extent by coming and going, and by looking at scenes or not, which I could not in my own life. I was subjected to my own domestic life. But I discovered a kind of power at the movies. — Donald Richie

I am glad that the country world ... retains a power to use our English tongue. It is a part of its sense of reality, of its vocabulary of definite terms, and of its habit of earthly common sense. I find this country writing an excellent corrective of the urban vocabulary of abstractions and of the emotion disguised as thinking which abstractions and humbug have loosed upon the world. May there always be such things as a door, a milk pail, and a loaf of bread, and words to do them honor. — Henry Beston

The holy spirit means the invisible power of Jehovah, holy because he is holy. This power of Jehovah operated upon the minds of honest men who loved and who were devoted to righteousness, directing them in the writing of the Bible. — Joseph Franklin Rutherford

In Edmund Gosse, Agnes Smedley, Geoffrey Wolff, we have a set of memoirists whose work records a steadily changing idea of the emergent self. But for each of them a flash of insight illuminating that idea grew out of the struggle to clarify one's own formative experience; and in each case the strength and beauty of the writing lie in the power of concentration with which this insight is pursued, and made to become the the writer's organizing principle. That principle at work is what makes a memoir literature rather than testament. — Vivian Gornick

I might think that equality has been achieved, there is no power relation going on in terms of class, race, or gender, I might just want to drink my latte and buy pretty shoes and write books about girls who marry, die, or go insane, then go get my nails done. — Lidia Yuknavitch

After a long time spent learning how to write as a woman instead of as an honorary man, I was able to come back to Earthsea and write the next three books in another and newer tradition: that of questioning, rather than accepting, the gendering of power as male. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Books are readable drugs. — Carla H. Krueger

Why bother with fictional characters and plots when the world was full of more marvelous stories that were true, with characters so fresh, so powerful, so new, that they stepped from into the narratives under their own power? — Doris Kearns Goodwin

It is the work of the Canadian artist to paint or play or write in such a way that life will be enlarged for himself and his fellow man. The painter will look around him ... and finding everything good, will strive to communicate that feeling through a portrayal of the essentials of sunlight, or snow, or tree or tragic cloud, or human face, according to his power and individuality. — J. E. H. MacDonald

Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours. — Erin Morgenstern

Rhythm, repetition, making patterns
these are not only important devices for shaping the strange and abstract instrument/object we call a poem or a story, but they are craved as well because of our primordial need for reassurance, the sense of security we get from moving over the known. A mystery doesn't lose power in revisiting. Writing is not just to know, it is also to console. We need to be reminded that we are part of the obscure rhythm of birth and decade. It is the humming that matters. — Breyten Breytenbach

I clearly remember writing songs [when I was young] and the power that it gave me of feeling like somebody. My whole life changed when I wrote those songs, even before anyone ever heard them. It wasn't a commercial thing. — Gwen Stefani

The real power of this book comes from its documentation from major sources. In fact, you will quickly discover that most of my documents about Jewish Supremacism are from Jewish sources. They argue more convincingly for my point of view than anything I could write. I encourage you to go to the sources that I quote and check them out for yourself. In this book I take you along with me on a fascinating journey of discovery in a forbidden subject. I urge you to courageously keep an open mind while you explore the topics ahead, for that is the only way any of us can find the truth. — David Duke

The vital power of an imaginative work demands a diversity within its unity; and the stronger the diversity the more massive the unity. — Dorothy L. Sayers

I am not covetous, but as ambitious as ever any of my sex was, is, or can be; which makes, that though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second, yet I endeavour to be Margaret the First; and although I have neither power, time, not occasion to conquer the world as Alexander and Caesar did; yet rather than not be mistress of one, since Fortune and Fates would give me none, I have made a world of my own; for which nobody, I hope, will blame me, since it is in everyone's power to do the like. — Margaret Cavendish

A man who writes a story is forced to put into it the best of his knowledge and the best of his feeling. The discipline of the written word punishes stupidity and dishonesty. A writer lives in awe of words for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. — John Steinbeck

[Hannah:] Here is to Rylie Cates: May your pens never run out of ink, your computer never run out of power, and your brain never run out of brilliant ideas. — Jessica Lave

Although many of his other novels are brilliant there is a power in 'Oliver Twist' that I believe Dickens never managed to retrieve. It is as if he was sent to this earth with the sole purpose of writing this book. — Henning Mankell

all the words
all the poems
know
my warm, soft spots. — Sanober Khan

Cyborg writing must not be about the Fall, the imagination of a once-upon-a-time wholeness before language, before writing, before Man. Cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other. — Donna J. Haraway

A wise soul once declared that the ultimate power of the writer is that he has the choice of whom he wants to be co-opted by. — David Brooks

I love the fact that people can relate to what I'm saying, even if it's not for the same subject I was writing about. That is the power of real music and real expression. — Corey Taylor

I don't really go out and do too much like networking and Hollywood events kind of thing. But I do some writing, and I find it helps me as an actor in terms of giving yourself back the power and feeling a bit of strength in that respect. — Scottie Thompson

As a writer, I can't really take days off. Writing is like creating an art. Once you stop writing, you can lose your rhythm and context, meaning that your writing may lose its power. — Andrea Hirata

You don't need special traits, special genes, or special motivation to write a lot. You don't need to want to write--people rarely feel like doing unpleasant tasks that lack deadlines--so don't wait until you feel like it. Productive writing comes from harnessing the power of habit, and habits come from repetition

p.129 — Paul J. Silvia

Writing is praying with me. You know a child would look up at every sentence and say, 'And what shall I say next?' That is just what I do; I ask Him that at every line He would give me not merely thoughts and power, but also every word, even the very rhymes. — Frances Ridley Havergal

I thought I would write something that would make some people uncomfortable ... What intrigued me, I think, was the idea of women of my own generation who were successful, intelligent, coming to power and suddenly in the public arena. I started to think about what they are allowed and what they are not allowed. — Wendy Wasserstein

His style as a writer places him in the category of the immortals, and his courage as a critic outlives the bitter battles in which he engaged. As a result, we use the word 'Orwellian' in two senses: The first describes a nightmare state, a dystopia of untrammelled power; the second describes the human qualities that are always ranged in resistance to such regimes, and that may be more potent and durable than we sometimes dare to think. — Christopher Hitchens

This is where I think the writing started. The "righting," if you will. The righting of circumstances, the shaping of the world the way it should have been, had God not had crossed eyes and buck teeth. In the real world I had no power; in my world I was Hercules unchained. — Robert McCammon

I love and enjoy writing.
Writing is a form of daily communication.
It a communication to higher divine power. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The pressure disappeared with the first word he put on paper. He thought
while his hand moved rapidly
what a power there was in words; later, for those who heard them, but first for the one who found them; a healing power, a solution, like the breaking of a barrier. He thought, perhaps the basic secret the scientists have not discovered, the first fount of life, is that which happens when a thought takes shape in words. — Ayn Rand

When you have something meaningful to say, you lose your desire for much grammar; for only in the incompetence of words does one seek the redeeming power of vocabulary. — King Samuel Benson

My stories usually begin with the characters and some elements of how power (personal, political, magical) functions in the world. The rest develops as I write, and research helps a great deal with that. If you're going to write about an agrarian economy, research agrarian economies. If your main character is starving, then you should know what it means for a malnourished body to break down. — Leigh Bardugo

Yet early on in the marriage I found myself
despite all my self-promises
drifting into the role of wife: focusing on the renovations of the apartment, doing silly little domestic things instead of writing, using the wife role as cop-out from my work, my work which had always involved me in so much controversy and which some part of me longed to retreat from ... Even when I was forty-seven, full of my own power, my own identity, something in me wanted to escape from the fray and dwindle into a wife. It seemed to comfy, so safe. — Erica Jong

...And there really are men who believe in this, who spend their time in promoting Leagues of Peace, in delivering addresses, and in writing books; and of course the governments sympathize with it all, pretending that they approve of it; just as they pretend to support temperance, while they actually derive the larger part of their income from intemperance; just as they pretend to maintain liberty of the constitution, when it is the absence of liberty to which they owe their power; just as they pretend to care for the improvement of the laboring classes, while on oppression of the workman rest the very foundations of the State; just as they pretend to uphold Christianity, when Christianity is subversive of every government. — Leo Tolstoy