#writ

I am aware of being in a beautiful prison, from which I can only escape by writing. ↗

— Anaïs Nin

#beauty

A story isn't a charcoal sketch, where every stroke lies on the surface to be seen. It's an oil painting, filled with layers that the author must uncover so carefully to show its beauty. ↗

— Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

#beauty

I wasn't sure what I'd done to deserve such a wonderful gift, and I wasn't sure if it was insolent, but I thanked God for fallen angels. ↗

— Jamie McGuire

#gratefulness #inspirational #thoughtful #beauty

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#self-expression #beauty

… and the most beautiful words ever spoken, I have not yet said to you. ↗

— Nâzım Hikmet

#writing #beauty

Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry. ↗

— Charles Baudelaire

#creativity #fantasy #grotesque #irony #novel

USURY: Everybody's looking for the job in which you never have to pay anyone their pound of flesh. Self-employed nirvana. A lot of artists like to think of themselves as uncompromising; a lot of management consultants won't tell you what they do until they've sunk five pints. I don't think anybody should give themselves air just because they don't have to hand over a pound of flesh every day at 5pm, and I don't think anyone should beat themselves with broken glass because they do. If you're an artist, well, good for you. Thank your lucky stars every evening and dance in the garden with the fairies. But don't fool yourself that you occupy some kind of higher moral ground. You have to work for that. Writing a few lines, painting a pretty picture - that just won't do it. ↗

— Zadie Smith

#writing #art

Becoming hurts. ↗

— Kat Howard

#transformation #truth #beauty

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlighenment and comfort at top speed ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#beauty

I prayed hard and only gradually became aware that this fierce praying was a way of finding prologue and entrance into my own writing. This came as both astonishment and relief. When I thought God had abandoned me, I discovered that He had simply given me a different voice to praise the inexhaustible beauty of the made world. ↗

— Pat Conroy

#beauty