Real Words

I’m home in bed with a cold today. It’s rainy out and I’ll probably spend most of the day reading and napping. For many writers, this is the ideal way to spend a day (other than the whole having a cold part). We love to read. And we love to find just those words and phrases that inspire us to improve our own writing.

I’ve collected quotes from other writers for a long time now and I have a big collection on a lot of different topics that inspire me in my own writing and my own life. Here are 18 of my favorite writing quotes and creativity quotes:

1. ” There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.” – Martha Graham. This is part of a longer quote; a lengthier version is included on the home page of my website because I think that this is one of the key things a writer should always remember – stay true to yourself even when the writing doesn’t come easily or starts to feel routine.
2. “When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” – Audre Lorde. In the same vein as the Martha Graham quote, this reminds us that we must say what we must say.
3. “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is ultimately to be at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be.” -Abraham Maslow. One final way of saying that you’ve got to stay true to what you really are, this time from someone known from the field of psychology rather than writing.
4. “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.  That is where the writer scores over his fellows:  he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” -Vita Sackville-West. A beautiful way of writing about the importance of writing!
5. “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” - Anton Chekhov. And a beautiful way of showing how to be descriptive in your writing!
6. “I don’t think it is possible to give tips for finding one’s voice; it’s one of those things for which there aren’t really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible.” – Poppy Z. Brite. By producing writing on a regular basis and paying attention to the work as you do it, you will discover your own writing voice.
7. “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” – Elmore Leonard. What a great reminder for writers of all kinds to stick to the good stuff and edit out the unnecessary parts!
8. “But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.“ - Lord Byron. Lovely.
9. “Ideas come from everywhere.” – Alfred Hitchcock. A reminder to look for writing inspiration everywhere you can think of looking.
10. “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E.L. Doctorow. It’s good to remember that you only need to put one word after the next to eventually reach a final product of writing.
11. “Start with your childhood. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can.” -Anne Lamott. If you don’t know where to start in your writing, start with where you started in life.
12. “There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.” – Robert Graves. I just think that this is a great way to look at separating your writing from the money it earns.
13. “What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.” -Julia Cameron. Another reminder that writing shouldn’t be done for money alone.
14. “The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.” – George Sand. A simple reminder that writing is intended to be inspiring.
15. “Fill your journal with inspiration and rage and tears and boredom and chaos and random pieces that happened to float past while you dreamed on that moonlit night.” – SARK. I think every writer should first be someone who keeps a journal.
16. “Writers live twice. They go along with their regular life, are as fast as anyone in the grocery store, crossing the street, getting dressed for work in the morning. But there’s another part of them that they have been training. The one that lives everything a second time. That sits down and sees their life again and goes over it. Looks at the texture and detail.” – Natalie Goldberg. There are several quotes I like that all get to the same notion of how writers live life twice, once in living and again in writing about it.
17. “It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.” – Joan Baez. Sometimes it does just come right out of you and spill onto the page.
18. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware off, no shortcut.” – Stephen King. All writers have to go back to these basics. Which is why I’m going to go read now.