My favorite quotes:
Pen names are masks that allow us to unmask ourselves. ~C. Astrid Weber
We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves. ~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. ~George Bernard Shaw
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. ~Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades, 1947
A man will turn over half a library to make one book. ~Samuel Johnson
Having imagination, it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that, if you were unimaginative, would take you only a minute. Or you might not write the paragraph at all. ~Franklin P. Adams, Half a Loaf, 1927
Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. ~Homer
I do not like to write - I like to have written. ~Gloria Steinem
Apologizing - a very desperate habit - one that is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side out. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Professor at the Breakfast-Table
Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. ~George Orwell, "Why I Write," 1947 (Thanks, Jennifer)
If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. ~Toni Morrison
The wastebasket is a writer's best friend. ~Isaac Bashevis Singer
Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them. ~François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665
The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. ~Vladimir Nabakov
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. ~Oscar Wilde
Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. ~Kurt Vonnegut
The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it. ~Jules Renard, "Diary," February 1895
A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. ~Henry Brooks Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 1907
Being an author is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum. ~Graycie Harmon
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. ~Herm Albright, quoted in Reader's Digest, June 1995
Every writer I know has trouble writing. ~Joseph Heller
Most editors are failed writers - but so are most writers. ~T.S. Eliot
It's not plagiarism - I'm recycling words, as any good environmentally conscious writer would do. ~Uniek Swain
FictionPress.com - let the words flow
