The hope for the unexpected is so essential to my process, I wouldn’t bother to start a poem if I already knew the ending. The pen is not just a recording device; it can also be an instrument of discovery.
– Billy Collins
Category: Quotable
Quotable 44
There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are.
– Somerset Maugham
Quotable 43
Good writers write whether they are in the mood or not. They practice whether they feel like it or not. It’s the only way. Everyday practice. That’s how you get better.
– Heather Sellers
Quotable 42
The only way to get ideas for stories is to drink way too much coffee and buy a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.
— Douglas Adams
Quotable 41
There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as do exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.
– Jessamyn West
Quotable 40
Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author’s soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted.
– Robert Benchley
Quotable 39
Creativity doesn’t come from learning; it comes from doing.
– Richard R. Ernst
Quotable 38
No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.
– Confucius
Quotable 37
If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.
– William Campbell Gault
Quotable 36
It is impossible to discourage the real writers — they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write.
– Sinclair Lewis