Quotation Saturday

Keep writing. Keep doing it and doing it. Even in the moments when it's so hurtful to think about writing.
~ HeatherArmstrong, Keynote Speech, SXSW 2006

Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it.
~ Jesse Stuart

If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.
~John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility. ~Katherine Paterson The Spying Heart, 1989

There's always something to write about. If there's not then you need to live life more aggressively.
~Min Kim, Better Blogging Brainstorming, SXSW 2006

A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.
~Ring Lardner (1885 - 1933), "How to Write Short Stories"

I never feel that I have comprehended an emotion, or fully lived even the smallest events, until I have reflected upon it in my journal; my pen is my truest confidant, holding in check the passions and disappointments that I dare not share even with my beloved.
~Stephanie Barron, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, 1996

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
~W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
~Frank Tibolt