#w

If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#knowledge

Wait,” he said. “That’s not a word.” I looked down to where, in a moment of desperation, I’d played zixic on a triple-word-score space. “Uh, sure it is.” “What’s it mean?” “It’s sort of like…quixotic, but with more…” “Bullshit?” I laughed out loud. I’d never heard him swear before. “More zeal. Hence the z.” “Uh-huh. Use it in a sentence.” “Um…’You are a zixic writer.’“ “I don’t believe this.” “That you’re zixic?” “That you’re trying to cheat at Scrabble.” He leaned back against my couch, shaking his head. “I mean, I was ready to accept the whole evil thing, but this is kind of extreme. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#georgina-kincaid #scrabble #writer

Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea. ↗

— Guy Debord

#embraces #erases #expressions #false #his

Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation. ↗

— Alasdair Gray

#progress #work #progress

I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings. ↗

— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

#attention #blame #feelings #follow #i

Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance. ↗

— Hendrik Willem Van Loon

#hendrick-van-loon #ignorance #society #willful-ignorance #education

Every story has already been told. Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had." [Commencement Speech; Mount Holyoke College, May 23, 1999] ↗

— Anna Quindlen

#creativity #originality #point-of-view #uniqueness #writing

The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end - you don't come to an achievement, you don't come to a conclusion. It is an endless river. ↗

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

#achievement

When your desires are strong enough, you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve. ↗

— Napoleon Hill

#desire #power #achievement

Don't be silly, Dawlish. I'm sure you are an excellent Auror, I seem to remember you achieved 'Outstanding' in all your N.E.W.T.s, but if you attempt to — er — 'bring me in' by force, I will have to hurt you. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#warning #achievement