Anne McCaffrey Quotes

Living was struggling to do something impossible - to succeed, or die, knowing you had tried!

Writing has been so much a part of my life that I'm really quite annoyed that I can't do as much as I used to.

Look around you, Lessa of Pern, look around the Weyr with unveiled eyes. Old and hallowed is the Weyr? Yes, but shabby and worn – and disregarded. Yes, you were elated to sit in the Weyrwoman's great chair at the Council Table, but the padding is thin and the fabric dusty. Humbled to think your hands rest where Moreta's and Torene's had rested? Well, the stone is ingrained with dirt and needs a good scrubbing. And your rump may rest where theirs did – but that's not where you have your brains.

There were two bronzes, three browns, a blue and two greens.

He is crooked enough to hide behind a spiral staircase.

Jubal threw his sign down in disgust and stalked away from the group. Sosi ran after him, the clipboard with the soggy petition

That's what writing is all about, after all, making others see what you have put down on the page and believing that it does, or could, exist and you want to go there.

Who wills, Can.
Who tries, Does.
Who loves, Lives.

be you and not someone else

Fear has its uses but cowardice has none.

I didn't mean to stay up all night to finish Windhaven, but I had to!

Fire-lizard dance on wing
To the raucous song I sing.
Fire-lizrad wheel and turn,
Show me how the dragons learn.

People have freaked out when I tell them that my dragons are scientifically based ... what else can you call a genetically engineered life form?

It isn't often one gets the chance to entertain one's great-great-great-grandmother. Sassinak.

Some folk, too, believe what the loudest talker says. And some folk because it frightens them not to.

Step by step
Moment by moment
We live through
Another day

I don't often reread my own books, unless I am going into another in the series and need to refresh my mood when originating the concept.

I'm very fond of the Talent series, and also the Crystal Singer trio.

My nightly craft is winged in white, a dragon of night dark sea.
Swift born, dream bound and rudderless, her captain and crew are me.
We've sailed a hundred sleeping tides where no seaman's ever been
And only my white-winged craft and I know the wonders we have seen.

I have written my own screen version of Pern, but had no buyers yet.

It's easier to flatter a man than fight him.

Pick on our clients, will you, you parasitical, piratical, putrefied parcels of puking pus-filled perverts.

I have my good days and my bad days, but I don't have as much energy as I used to back when I was young and foolish and didn't count the cost - and it takes a lot - to write.

I would recommend the short story form, which is a lot harder to write since you have to be so careful with words, until there is plenty of time to doodle through a novel.

Make no judgements where you have no compassion.

Exchange information, learn to speak sensibly about any subject, learn to express your thoughts, accept new ones, examine them, analyze. Think objectively. Think toward the future.

I have a shelf of comfort books, which I read when the world closes in on me or something untoward happens.

I wouldn't encourage new writers to start off publishing through electronic media ... it still isn't wide enough for the readership they would need to get a good start.

(Meli, are you sure these "humans" are on our side?)
(No ... but at least they are not Khieevi.)
(That is beginning to seem less and less of a recommendation. Like us in form, perhaps, but hardly in ethics.)
(That may not be entirely a bad thing. If they meet their friends with weapons in both hands, what do you suppose they do to their enemies?)

Each egg hatched a different way, but a crack at the right time speeded things up.

The tears I feel today
I'll wait to shed tomorrow.
Though I'll not sleep this night
Nor find surcease from sorrow.
My eyes must keep their sight:
I dare not be tear-blinded.
I must be free to talk
Not choked with grief, clear-minded.
My mouth cannot betray
The anguish that I know.
Yes, I'll keep my tears til later:
But my grief will never go.

James Blish told me I had the worst case of "said bookism" (that is, using every word except said to indicate dialogue). He told me to limit the verbs to said, replied, asked, and answered and only when absolutely necessary.

Necessity breeds solution.

Maybes never are.

Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences.

Oh, Tongue, give sound to joy and sing
Of hope and promise on dragonwing

Make no judgments where you have no compassion.

Of course, an exhausting day at sail lines and nets left little energy to expend on running or laughing. Perhaps that was why her parents couldn't appreciate her music-it wouldn't appear to be hard work to them. Menolly shook her hands, letting them flap from her wrists. They ached and trembled from the constricted movements and tension of an hour of intensive playing. No, her parents would never understand that playing musical instruments could be as hard work as sailing or fishing.

But she wouldn't have been a Cat Person if she had not.

Seed of a syphilitic she-camel,

Ridicule was a better defense than truth.

There wasn't a man alive in Pern who hadn't secretly cherished the notion that he might be able to Impress a dragon. That he could be linked for life to the love and sustaining admiration of these gentle great beasts. That he could transverse Pern in a twinkling, astride his dragon. That he would never suffer the loneliness that was the condition of most men - a dragonrider always had his dragon.

The blackest night must end in dawn, the light dispel the dreamer's fear.

Fight only in direst need
Not for lust or petty greed
Honor those that do give birth
Respect them well for their full worth

But Ship Who Sang remains my favorite story. I really rocked folks with that and still cannot read it aloud myself without weeping at the end.

I do outlines when I'm writing with someone, but they also need to have a certain amount of freedom.

Mostly I'm telling people that they don't have to be victims.

I have always used emotion as a writing tool. That goes back to me being on the stage.

Die happy-I will, F'nor cried, cutting more fruit.

Living is struggling to do something impossible;
To succeed or die, knowing that you had tried.

People don't change, love. React first, think later, regret at leisure. He

It is time to end a story that began in sorrow and ordeal and has ended in a deep and lasting happiness. May it be so for others.

The bronze rider of Mnementh, Lord F'lar, will require quarters for himself. I, F'nor, brown rider, prefer to be lodged with the wingmen. We are, in number, twelve. F'lar liked that touch of F'nor's, totting up the wing strength, as if Fax were incapable of counting.

I'm 78, I'm on my pension in Ireland, and all that good stuff.

I think writers need windows on a view to remind them that a whole world is out there, not the minutiae with which they might be dealing on a close scale.

There's nothing wrong in doubting. It sometimes leads to greater faith.

Don't leave me alone!
A cry in the night,
OF anguish heart-stiking,
Of soul-killing fright.
Live for my living
Or else I must die
Don't leave me alone.
A world heard that cry.

Man is wise to fear: it sharpens the sense of self-preservation.

It must be an amazing mind-set, Afra thought, to consider one's self the only being of worth in the galaxy. There had been Humans who had had such delusions. They had generally died because of them

Ramoth's huge golden wedge-shaped head swiveled around as the sleepy dragon instinctively sought her Wyermate.

speak hard, steal the air.

Has been done. Can be done. Must be done...

There's something wrong in not appreciating one's own special abilities, my girl. Find your own limitations, yes, but don't limit yourself with false modesty.

Chuckled, referring to the time Markel had used up sixty percent of the system's resources to simulate a series of space battles in real time for one of his war games. Markel flushed.

What I used to do between writing fits was feed my kids, ride my horse and go shopping for cat and dog food.

Rider to your mate be true
Follow heart in deed and do
All the best your strength can find
So you will rest in heart and mind

Tell a story! Don't try to impress your reader with style or vocabulary or neatly turned phrases. Tell the story first!

And so we must arm ourselves with tongues of flame.

True portraits are never realistic

The horse, the noblest, bravest, proudest, most courageous and certainly the most perverse and infuriating animal that humans ever domesticated

If Jana had been given to putting her thoughts into words, she might have told Laxmi that without someone to love,there was no reason to live.

You idiot! You misbegotten son of a jinn's meeting with a jackass, may the grave of your maternal grandmother be defiled by the dung of ten thousand syphilitic she-camels!

I also don't have organized religion on Pern. I figured - since there were four holy wars going on at the time of writing - that religion was one problem Pern didn't need.

Dragon kind was no less cruel than mankind. The Dragon, at least, acted from bestial need rather than bestial greed."
~ A thought by Lessa ~

At age 77, I need the help of someone with more energy than I can now summon to finish a book.

I did not have a chance to write novels until my youngest child started school fulltime.

To cry was to release all sorts of ugly little pressures and tensions. Like waking out of a long, dark dream to a sun-filled day.

Given the infinite variety of human personalities, it was impossible to like everyone.

I think the Internet, particularly the availability of information, is great. I do a lot of correspondence on-line and have a chat line to talk to my fans as well.