#writing

When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill. It was good to be old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity. ↗

— Charles Bukowski

#suicide #writing #age

Who is better off? The one who writes to revel in the voluptuousness of the life that surrounds them? Or the one who writes to escape the tediousness of that which awaits them outside? Whose flame will last longer? ↗

— Roman Payne

#books #escape #flame #heroic #heroism

I always tell my students, about the biggest baddest things in life you must try to write small and light, save the big writing for the unexpected tiny thing that always makes or breaks a story. ↗

— Pam Houston

#story #themes #unexpected #writing #life

The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn't talk about it. She does her work. ↗

— Steven Pressfield

#art #inspiration #writing #art

I really don't know why Scarlett has such appeal. When I began writing the sequel, I had a lot of trouble because Scarlett is not my kind of person. She's virtually illiterate, has no taste, never learns from her mistakes. ↗

— Alexandra Ripley

#because #began #had #her #i

The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her. ↗

— Steven Pressfield

#motivation #writing #art

We live today amid ritualized anithumanisms. Among those intelligent enough to feel despair, some seek salvation in the literary artist. Artists love flattery; and the scam doesn't work without mystifying the process. The weather is unpredictable, but it is not mysterious. Wall Street is unpredictable, but it is not mysterious. Writing is unpredictable, (like street and sky, there are too many variables.) Its mystery vanishes, like a shadow, the moment the light aimed at your characters turns back upon yourself. ↗

— Doran Larson

#writing #art

Making reality real is art's responsibility. It is a practical assignment, then, a self-assignment: to achieve, by a cultivated sensitivity for observing life, a capacity for receiving impressions, a lonely, unremitting, unaided, unaidable vision, and transferring this vision without distortion to it onto the pages of a novel, where, if the reader is so persuaded, it will turn into the reader's illusion. ↗

— Eudora Welty

#writing #art

Being discouraged is natural but giving up is not an option. ↗

— Court Young

#writing #nature

I despair of ever writing excellent poetry. ↗

— Isaac Rosenberg

#ever #excellent #i #poetry #writing