And I Quote—

Quotes to feed your writer’s brain

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. George Bernard Shaw

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. Seneca

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was. Jackson Pollock

Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through. Wislawa Szymborska

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae. Kurt Vonnegut

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. Franklin P Jones

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. Anais Nin

Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed. Michael Pritchard

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise. W Somerset Maugham

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.   A. A. Milne

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is a part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us. Herman Hesse

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust

Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me. Sigmund Freud

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited. Plutarch

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to

communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to

share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he

wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different

from others. Leo Rosten

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving

of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found

anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. Buddha

Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something. Thomas A. Edison

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. G.K. Chesterton

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work. Kahlil Gibran

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. Douglas Adams

Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing. Robert Benchley

Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there. Thomas Berger

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. Albert Camus

A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. Sir Barnett Cocks

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite. Paul Dirac

The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. Terry Pratchett

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Maya Angelou

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. Stephen King

If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. Toni Morrison

I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged. Erica Jong