Quotations

Sorry, but no self-respecting writer would be without a list of quotations....

  Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. --Dr. Howard Thurman

  Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward. --Kurt Vonnegut

  The only way I can get anything written is to write really, really shitty first drafts. --Anne Lamott

  Be Yourself. Let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish. --John Jakes

  I have always had a special affinity for libraries and librarians, for the most obvious reasons. I love books. (One of my first Jobs was shelving books at a branch of the Chicago Public Library.) Libraries are a pillar of any society. I believe our lack of attention to funding and caring for them properly in the United States has a direct bearing on problems of literacy, productivity, and our inability to compete in today's world. Libraries are everyman's free university. --John Jakes

  Never trust anything you think about your writing when you're not writing. --David Milch

  "The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never, never forget!" "You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it.” --Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

  What you are is God's gift to you; what you become is your gift to God. --Unknown

  If you do everything in your power to avoid writing and still can't, then you must be a writer. --Fannie Flagg

  You gotta be original, because if you're like someone else, what do they need you for? --Bernadette Peters

  A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. --Mark Twain

  It is never too late to be what you might have been. --George Eliot

  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. --Edmund Burke

  And all the loveliest things there be, Come simply, so it seems to me. --Edna St. Vincent Milay

  Nothing is so fatiguing as the hanging on of an uncompleted task. --William James

  Just for today, I will choose and display the right attitudes.
Just for today, I will determine and act on important priorities. Just for today, I will know and follow healthy guidelines. Just for today, I will communicate with and care for my family. Just for today, I will practice and develop good thinking. Just for today, I will make and keep proper commitments. Just for today, I will earn and properly manage finances. Just for today, I will deepen and live out my faith. Just for today, I will initiate and invest in solid relationships. Just for today, I will plan for and model generosity. Just for today, I will embrace and practice good values. Just for today, I will seek and experience improvements. Just for today, I will act on these decisions and practice these disciplines, and then one day, I will see the compounding results of a day lived well. --John Maxwell's Daily Dozen from "Today Matters"

  Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people. --John Adams

  I am because other people are. --Desmond Tutu

  Dreams are God whispering in our ears about what we are meant to be doing. --Anne Wayman, freelancewrite.about.com guide

  All the while ignoring my own stern advice to students who claim to have writers’ block: thinking is the kiss of death for any kind of writing. The more you don’t write, the more you don’t write. --Barbara Shoup

  Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. --John Steinbeck

  Anything that is of value in life only multiplies when it is given. --Deepak Chopra

  When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." --Erma Bombeck

  The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. --James Taylor

  Peace begins with a smile. --Mother Teresa

  He who angers you, conquers you. --Elizabeth Kenny

  Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. --Sir Winston Churchill

  The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it, put your whole soul into it - every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have. --John D. Rockefeller III

  God can't drive a parked car. --Joyce Meyer

  You must do that which you think you cannot do. --Eleanor Roosevelt

  Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. --Eleanor Roosevelt

  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.  --Sylvia Plath

  Not until we are lost, do we truly understand ourselves. --Henry David Thoreau

  If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. --Henry David Thoreau

  The best way out is always through. --Robert Frost

  Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. --Henry Ford

  To the world, you may be just one person; but to one person, you may be the world! --Unknown

  Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the things you have for which you would not take money. --Unknown

  You cannot live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. --John Wooden

  The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit. -- Somerset Maugham

  If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital. If you don't feel like you are writing somewhat over your head, why do it? If you don't have some doubt of your authority to tell this story, then you are not trying to tell enough. -- John Irving

  About a recurring dream she had: "[In it]...I am asked to give an accounting of my...life to a higher court, it [goes] like this: 'So, empty your pockets. What have you got left of your life? Any dreams that were unfulfilled? Any unused talent that we gave you when you were born that you still have left? Any unsaid compliments or bits of love that you haven't spread around?' And I will answer, 'I've nothing to return. I spent everything you gave me. I'm as naked as the day I was born.'" -- Erma Bombeck