...Quotables @ Bookshelf ...

LelaRentaka7

“Writing and reading are the only ways to find your voice. It won't magically burst forth in your poems the next time you sit down to write, or the next; but little by little, as you become aware of more choices and begin to make them -- consciously and unconsciously -- your style will develop.”
― Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide To The Pleasures Of Writing Poetry

seribulan

LelaRentaka7

“Words have weight.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

LelaRentaka7

Alone with the cat in the room where you work ... the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk lamp ... The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquility of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious.”
― Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington

LelaRentaka7

“Of all human activities, writing is the one for which it is easiest to find excuses not to begin – the desk’s too big, the desk’s too small, there’s too much noise, there’s too much quiet, it’s too hot, too cold, too early, too late. I had learned over the years to ignore them all, and simply to start.”
― Robert Harris, The Ghost

LelaRentaka7

“Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

LelaRentaka7

“a true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.”
― Tobias Wolff, Old School

LelaRentaka7

“Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be. ”
― Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

LelaRentaka7

“A scene should be selected by the writer for haunted-ness-of-mind interest.
If you're not haunted by something, as by a dream, a vision, or a memory, which are involuntary, you're not interested or even involved.”
― Jack Kerouac, Book of Sketches

LelaRentaka7

“Building your "dream life" is filled with things that can feel like the opposite of a dream:
Mistakes
Delays
Starting over
Failure

The building part is actually more of a rebuilding that is a continual process. The building is not linear in nature but far more interesting. You might start a creative dream, take the "next step", and find yourself completely bored, dissatisfied, or just not inspired. ”
― S.A.R.K., Make Your Creative Dreams Real: A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy People, and People Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day

LelaRentaka7

“After you have finished a piece of work, the work is then none of your business. Go on and do something else.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life

LelaRentaka7

“It has always been on the written page that the world has come into focus for me. If I can piece all these bits of memory together with the diaries and letters and the scribbled thoughts that clutter my mind and bookshelves, then maybe I can explain what happened. Maybe the worlds I have inhabited for the past seven years will assume order and logic and wholeness on paper. Maybe I can tell my story in a way that is useful to someone else.”
― Nancy Horan, Loving Frank

LelaRentaka7

“I scan the room. Catherine is writing quickly, her light brown hair falling over her face. She is left-handed, and because she writes in pencil her left arm is silver from wrist to elbow.”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

LelaRentaka7

“As an experienced editor, I disapprove of flashbacks, foreshadowings, and tricksy devices; they belong in the 1980s with M.A.s in postmodernism and chaos theory.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

LelaRentaka7

“Identifying Your Dream

Some people can easily identify one primary dream. For others, a dream is more elusive. These people often have many dreams at once, or a general idea of a dream that never takes a specific shape.”
― S.A.R.K., Make Your Creative Dreams Real: A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy People, and People Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day

LelaRentaka7

"I could be doing like writing but it seems that it does not feel good to sit and write but yet some part of me seems to love it and something in me hates it sort of like it could be the thing for me to do and yet it might not be.”
― Klaus Joehle, A Weekend with 'a' Drunken Leprechaun: "Finding Your Joy"

LelaRentaka7

“I think that I had better go, Holmes."
"Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

LelaRentaka7

“I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.”
― Dorothy Allison, Trash: Stories

LelaRentaka7

“Rereading parts of your novel while writing is like doubling back at rerunning parts of a marathon midrace.”
― Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days

LelaRentaka7

“A funny little literary article in the hand is worth at least three Critiques of Pure Reason in the bush.”
― Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan