#tin

For writing a first draft requires from the writer a peculiar internal state which ordinary life does not induce. ... how to set yourself spinning? ↗

— Annie Dillard

#life

To be an honest writer, you have to be away from home, and totally alone in life. ↗

— Miguel Syjuco

#life

The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror. I would curse myself if I were a father. A son of mine! Oh no, no, no! May my entire flesh perish and may I transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#disgust #horror-of-life #life

Except for politics, no business is scrutinized more exhaustively than journalism. ↗

— Russell Baker

#except #journalism #more #politics #scrutinized

I'm planting a tree to teach me to gather strength from my deepest roots. ↗

— Andrea Koehle Jones

#children-s-books #children-s-literature #roots #strength-of-character #tree-of-life

There's a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises.... If you write for life, you'll work hard; you'll do what's honest, not what pays ↗

— Toni Morrison

#life

People are incredibly rude about it sometimes. Like, `What? You`re married?` Strange reaction to have. Proves what people`s ideas about marriage are. `We`re having a baby.` `What?` As if it`s the end of the world. Of course, it`s the start of a brilliant world. ↗

— Ewan McGregor

#actors #children #life #love #married

Writing was never work for me. It had been the same for as long as I could remember: turn on the radio to a classical music station, light a cigarette or a cigar, open the bottle. The typer did the rest. All I had to do was be there. The whole process allowed me to continue when life itself offered very little, when life itself was a horror show. There was always the typer to soothe me, to talk to me, to entertain me, to save my ass. Basically that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself. ↗

— Charles Bukowski

#writing #life

But there were too many points at which the other self could invade the self he wanted to preserve, and there were too many forms of invasion: certain words, sounds, lights, actions his hands or feet performed, and if he did nothing at all, heard and saw nothing, the shouting of some triumphant inner voice that shocked him and cowed him. ↗

— Patricia Highsmith

#inner-voice #inner-voicery #invasion #life #lights

The human heart is my territory. I write about love because it’s the most important thing in the world. I write about sex because often it feels like the most important thing in the world. ↗

— Jeanette Winterson

#love #sex #writting #life