WindTurtle Studio
Writing
Passion is what we are most deeply curious about, most hungry for, will most hate to lose in life. It is the most desperate wish we need to yell down the well of our lives. It is whatever we pursue merely for its own sake, what we study when there are no tests to take, what we create though no one may ever see it. It makes us forget that the sun rose and set, that we have bodily functions and personal relations that could use a little tending. It is what we'd do if we weren't worried about consequences, about money, about making anybody happy but ourselves. It is whatever we could be tempted to sell our souls for in order to have a hundred extra years just to devote to it, whatever fills us with the feeling poet Anne Sexton was referring to when she said that "when I'm writing, I know I'm doing the thing I was born to do." It is what matters most, whether we're doing it or not. — Gregg Levoy
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. — Jack London
Write hard and clear about what hurts. — Hemingway
The courage of the poet is to keep ajar
the door that leads into madness. — Christopher Morley
Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without annoying delays: don’t write about Man, write about ‘a’ man. — E.B. White
In literature class, the students were given an assignment to write a short story involving all the important ingredients — nobility, emotion, sex, religion, and mystery. A student wrote: "My god! Cried the duchess, "I’m pregnant, Who did it?" — source unknown
Too many poets delude themselves by thinking that the mind is dangerous and must be left out. Well, the mind is dangerous and must be left in. — Robert Frost
I have made this a rather long letter because I haven’t had time to make it shorter. — Pascal
The smartest thing I ever did was invent somebody who now supports me. — Sue Grafton
More than kisses, letters mingle souls. — John Donne
Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light. — Joseph Pulitzer
The one man who should never attempt an explanation on poetry is its author. If the poem can be improved by its author’s explanations, it never should have been published. — Archibald MacLeish
Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads. — Marianne Moore
Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tag line. — Paul O’Neil
Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book. — Cicero