Favorite Quotes

I love quotes. I think it has something to do with being a third child. Why go through the school of hard knocks if big brother or sister can do it for you? I learned vicariously that shaving the pills off your cashmere sweater with Dad's new electric razor makes him turn a peculiar shade of red. Who would have thought? Thanks for the tip, sis. And I can thank my big brother for a few doozies too--actually more than a few. What a guy. I learned early on that observation is a good thing.

Here are a few gems I've come upon, wisdom and insights that have helped me along the way. Most here relate to the writing life, but there are many that cross all boundaries and will give you something to think about--or at least ward off a possible war over your dad's razor. Enjoy!

The gift of story is the opportunity to live lives beyond our own, to desire and struggle in a myriad of worlds and times, at all the various depths of our being.
--Robert McKee

I wish I knew how long novels took before I started them. I would have started much much earlier.
--Marlene Perez

I'm doing what I know how to do, as well as I know how to do it.
--Stephen King

Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you make the whole trip that way.
--E.L. Docorow

Writing itself is an act of faith, and nothing else.
–E. B. White

You must write for children the same way you would write for adults . . . only better.
–Maxim Gorky

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
–Voltaire

. . . a book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.
–C.S. Lewis

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
–Somerset Maugham

To see things in the seed, that is genius.
–Lao-tzu

Writing is nothing if not a long-distance race.
–Betsy Lerner

This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again.
–Oscar Wilde

A writer's voice is not character alone, it is not style alone; it is far more. A writer's voice--like the stroke of an artist's brush--is the thumbprint of her whole person--her idea, wit, humor, passions, rhythms.
–Patricia Lee Gauch

Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!
–Job 19:23

So this is always the key: You have to write the book you love, the book that's alive in your heart. That's the one you have to write.
–Lurlene McDaniel

What I like about a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.
--Logan Pearsall Smith

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.
--Joseph Addison

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
--Elie Wiesel

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.
--Corrie Ten Boom

To escape criticism--do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
--Elbert Hubbard

A man's heart plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps.
--Proverbs 16:9

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
–Jonathan Swift

Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right.
--Henry Ford

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

We can do no great things--only small things with great love.
--Mother Teresa

Nobody makes a greater mistake, than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.
--Edmund Burke

I think . . . I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check.
--M. C. Escher