Inspiration, Perspiration, Desperation: Sayings for Writers

I figured a collection of sayings about writing, work, business, and life. Hope it makes for a fun break:

• Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick any two. (Anon)


• Your failure to plan is not my emergency. (Anon)


• I usually get more for that. (Tim Harper)


• When the going gets tough, remember the assignment will eventually end. (Erik Sherman)


• Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. (Hannah Arendt)


• Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. (Sir James Barry)


• Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. (Flannery O'Connor)


• To be prepared is half the victory. (Miguel Cervantes)


• Publication - is the auction of the Mind of Man. (Emily Dickinson)


• Writing is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to those who have none. (Jules Renard)


• Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for. (Alice Walker)


• Asking a writer what he thinks about criticism is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs. (John Osborne)


• Always be smarter than the people who hire you. (Lena Horne)


• I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork. (Peter DeVries)


• No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work. (Mother Theresa)


• The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time. (Abraham Lincoln)


• Women do not always have to write about women, or gay men about gay men. Indeed, something good and new might happen if they did not. (Kathryn Hughes)


• Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use. (Mark Twain)


• Critics are by no means the end of the law. Do not think all is over with you because you articles are rejected. It may be that the editor has his drawer full, or that he does not know enough to appreciate you, or you have not gained a reputation, or he is not in a mood to be pleased. A critic's judgment is like that of any intelligent person. If he has experience, he is capable of judging whether a book will sell. That is all. (Lavina Goodell)


• Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. (Robert Heinlein)


• If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves. (Lillian Hellman)


• Television has raised writing to a new low. (Samuel Goldwyn)


• Writers will happen in the best of families. (Rita Mae Brown)


• In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. (George Orwell)


• I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on. (Beryl Pfizer)


• Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers. (Jimmy Breslin)


• Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it. (Octavia Butler)


• Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money. (Jules Renard)


• If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we'd all be millionaires. (Abigail Van Buren)


• Every writer I know has trouble writing. (Joseph Heller)


• If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. (Dorothy Parker)


• It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write. (Sinclair Lewis)


• It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business. (Gertrude Stein)


• I can't believe it! Reading and writing actually paid off! (Matt Groening)


• Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing. (Harriet Braiker)


• The wastebasket is a writer's best friend. (Isaac Bashevis Singer)


• Too many people go through life waiting for things to happen instead of making them happen. (Sasha Azevedo)


• English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education -- sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street. (E.B. White)


• I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. (Helen Keller)


• Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it's addressed to someone else. (Ivern Ball)


• Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help you sleep at night. (Marian Wright Edelman)