Blank Page Quotes

The answer is not in the damn blank page - it's in the days or years before and you have to dredge it up - exhume the past again ... ~ John Geddes

To paint an image and to write a poem, is to reclaim the dignity and personal joy...it is an invitation for my creative contemplation of an opened mind...it is a storytelling venture on a blank page of paper and white canvases...it is reclaiming my life. ~ Isabella Koldras, Reclaiming My Life.

I'll tell you now. That silence almost beat me. It's the silence that scares me. It's the blank page on which I can write my own fears. The spirits of the dead have nothing on it. The dead one tried to show me hell, but it was a pale imitation of the horror I can paint on the darkness in a quiet moment. ~ Mark Lawrence

The last time I was single the men I was looking at were in their thirties and I still had that youthful image fixed in my head. It was depressing at first, choosing from a pool that's not regarded as desirable or vital in your society. [...] I managed to re-educate myself eventually. Now I'm only attracted to people my age. A young face looks like a blank page to me. ~ Viv Albertine

There are few experiences as depressing as that anxious barren state known as writer's block, where you sit staring at your blank page like a cadaver, feeling your mind congeal, feeling you talent run down your leg and into your sock. ~ Anne Lamott

The future will remain unknown. It will remain a secret. A blank page that I get to write myself. ~ Catherine Downen

You have 365 new blank pages. What will you write on first blank page? ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

It all adds up; never discount your efforts, because small efforts build big things. One word doesn't make a novel, but one word does begin a novel, and from that small beginning everything else follows. Even if it's just 'The', write something on that blank page. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

If you're going to love a poet you should know this. Our words are our truths. Our blood hums with verse. We break easily. Our words save us. Our stanzas keep us alive. If we loved you at all, we loved you truly. And you will never leave us but live under our skin and beneath the tips of our fingers and in the ink spill on blank page.
Because poetry, like some love, is forever. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc

A blank page of paper and a pen is the greatest invention its so exciting to be confronted by possibility. ~ Nicky Wire

After tonight I will not date put pen to paper again. A blank page to me is like a drink to an alcoholic. ~ Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

Never sit staring at a blank page or screen. If you find yourself stuck, write. Write about the scene you're trying to write. Writing about is easier than writing, and chances are, it will give you your way in. ~ Laini Taylor

In order to understand how engineers endeavor to insure against such structural, mechanical, and systems failures, and thereby also to understand how mistakes can be made and accidents with far-reaching consequences can occur, it is necessary to understand, at least partly, the nature of engineering design. It is the process of design, in which diverse parts of the 'given-world' of the scientist and the 'made-world' of the engineer are reformed and assembled into something the likes of which Nature had not dreamed, that divorces engineering from science and marries it to art. While the practice of engineering may involve as much technical experience as the poet brings to the blank page, the painter to the empty canvas, or the composer to the silent keyboard, the understanding and appreciation of the process and products of engineering are no less accessible than a poem, a painting, or a piece of music. Indeed, just as we all have experienced the rudiments of artistic creativity in the childhood masterpieces our parents were so proud of, so we have all experienced the essence of structual engineering in our learning to balance first our bodies and later our blocks in ever more ambitious positions. We have learned to endure the most boring of cocktail parties without the social accident of either our bodies or our glasses succumbing to the force of gravity, having long ago learned to crawl, sit up, and toddle among our tottering towers of blocks. If we could remember those earl ~ Henry Petroski

sun caught the edge of his belt buckle, projecting a flash that shimmered across the desert plain. A shrill whistle sounded, and as I stepped to the right I caught sight of his shadow spilling a whole other set of sophisms from an entirely different angle. - I been here before, haven't I? He just sat there staring out at the plain. Son of a bitch, I thought. He's ignoring me. - Hey, I said, I'm not the dead, not a shade passing. I'm flesh and blood here. He pulled a notebook out of his pocket and started writing. - You got to at least look at me, I said. After all, it is my dream. I drew closer. Close enough to see what he was writing. He had his notebook open to a blank page and three words suddenly materialized. Nope, it's mine. - Well, I'll be damned, I murmured. I ~ Patti Smith

The truth is, the difference between a studio photographer and a photojournalist is the same as the difference between a political cartoonist and an abstract painter; the only thing the two have in common is the blank page. The jobs entail different talents and different desires. ~ Lynsey Addario

You are just in the middle of a struggle with words which are really very stubborn things, with a blank page, with the damn thing that you use to write with, a pen or a typewriter, and you forget all about the reader when you are doing that. ~ Guillermo Cabrera Infante

The key thing is that you start every film from sort of a blank page, almost like you discover it like a child discovers a new world. ~ Marc Forster

I am a college-educated American. In all my years of formal schooling, I never read Plato or Aristotle, Homer or Virgil. I knew nothing of Greek and Roman history and barely grasped the meaning of the Middle Ages. Dante was a stranger to me, and so was Shakespeare. The fifteen hundred years of Christianity from the end of the New Testament to the Reformation were a blank page, and I knew only the barest facts about Luther's revolution. I was ignorant of Descartes and Newton. My understanding of Western history began with the Enlightenment. Everything that came before it was lost behind a misty curtain of forgetting. Nobody did this on purpose. Nobody tried to deprive me of my civilizational patrimony. But nobody felt any obligation to present it to me and my generation in an orderly, coherent fashion. Ideas have consequences - and so does their lack. ~ Rod Dreher

Every moment has infinite potential. Every new moment contains for you possibilities that you can't possibly imagine. Every day is a blank page that you could fill with the most beautiful drawings. ~ John C. Parkin

I took many notes, more than usual before I sat down and wrote Act One, Scene One. I had perhaps eighty pages of notes ... I was so prepared that the script seemed inevitable. It was almost all there. I could almost collate it from my notes. The story line, the rather tenuous plot we have, seemed to work out itself. It was a very helpful way to write, and it wasn't so scary. I wasn't starting with a completely blank page. ~ Charles Busch

The future is a blank page, but not a mystery. ~ Lisa Wingate

I am with fire between my teeth and still nothing but my blank page. ~ Monique Wittig

You can't revise a blank page. ~ Leonard Wolf

There's a monster at the end of this book. It's the blank page where the story ends and you're left alone with yourself and your thoughts. ~ Cecil Baldwin

Nothing listens as well as a blank page. ~ Shaun Hick

I don't even subscribe to writer's block being a truthful thing. I've had writer's laziness quite often. But I think it's all about sitting down and facing down the blank page and doing it, and I've always been ok at that. ~ Martin McDonagh

But when I accept the call of creative passion, I am a bold stroke of vermilion, a renegade hyperbole, or the wild fury of jazz violin. The world is a canvas to explore, a blank page to fill, and an arpeggio of waiting experiences. This moving masterpiece called "life" becomes intoxicating when it's lived as if it were art. ~ Jill Badonsky

A lot of people don't like to spend money on a journal because they're afraid to wreck it, which is understandable. I buy beautifully made leather-bound journals because I have lost my fear of the blank page. ~ Keri Smith

Within these margins I find my serenity - with a blank page and a pencil, I am set free. ~ Jordyn McKenzie

The story of who you are, were, will be: you don't have to accept any of this. If you want, bypass selective editing and let the whole thing go. All of it. Stay on the blank page as long as you want; then write a new story if you like. Just remember that you'll have to write in roles for other people that they like if you want others to play along. ~ Jason Louv

And hope, that ancient seed, redeems the heart it feeds. The heartbeat of any conscious now is poised on the same choice that hope gives all of us, between shadows of the past, and the bright, blank page of any new day. ~ Gregory David Roberts

Well,that was fun," she said lightly as he maneuvered out of the lot. "I'm really glad you talked me into going out. My day was a blank page until seven."
That long, quiet moment lingered in his mind even as it lingered in Shelby's. Alan shifted, hoping to ease the thudding in the pit of his stomach. "Always happy to help someone fill in a few empty spaces." Alan controlled the speed of the car through force of will. Holding her hadn't soothed him but rather had only served to remind him how much time had passed since he had last held her.
"Actually you're an easy man to be with, Alan, for a politician." Easy? Shelby repeated to herself as she pressed the button to lower her window. Her blood was still throbbing from a meeting of eyes that had lasted less than ten seconds. If he was any easier, she'd be head over heels in love with him and headed for disaster. "I mean,you're not really pompous."
He shot her a look, long and cool, that boosted her confidence. "No?" he murmured after a humming silence.
"Hardly at all." Shelby sent him a smile. "Why,I'd probably vote for you myself."
Alan paused at a red light, studying it thoughtfully before he turned to her. "Your insults aren't as subtle today, Shelby."
"Insults?" Shelby gave him a bland stare. "Odd,I thought it was more flattery.Isn't a vote what it all comes down to? Votes, and that all-encompassing need to win."
The light stayed green for five full seconds before he cruised through it. "B ~ Nora Roberts

I can fix a bad page. I can't fix a blank page. ~ Nora Roberts

Writing the first draft of a new story is incredibly difficult for me. I will happily do revisions, because once I can see the words on the page, I can go about ripping them up and moving scenes around. A blank page, though? Terrifying. I'm always angsty when I'm working my way through a first draft. ~ Marie Lu

I sat down, turning the pages of my notebook in search of a blank page, in the dim light of my room. The arrival of nightfall had invited leafy shadows to play hide and seek in the glass reflection of the window. I smiled as one of these mischievous shadows crept across the page in a midnight dance. ~ Gina Marinello-Sweeney

If you're a lumberjack, you know what to do. You see trees, and you still have a job! If you're a writer, you see a blank page. You don't know if you still have a job. You might have great ideas - you may have no ideas. ~ Tim Schafer

The enemy is not the badly written page; it is the empty page the great advantage of a badly written page is that it can be rewritten. It can be improved. A blank page is zero. In fact, it's worse than zero, because it represents territory you're afraid, unwilling, or too lazy to explore. Avoid exploring this territory long enough, and you'll abandon your book. ~ Timothy Hallinan

Having the great opportunity on a daily basis to sit in front of a blank page is terrifying, and at the same time really exciting. I can't actually get better at my job, because every time you finish something you start with a blank page, with nothing. ~ Hans Zimmer

1.) Don't get it right. Get it written.
2.) You cannot fix a blank page.
3.) Give yourself permission to write crap. Crap can be fixed. (See #2) ~ Julie Elizabeth

Who then," she continues, "tells a finer tale than any of us? Silence does. And where does one read a deeper tale than upon the most perfectly printed page of the most precious book? Upon the blank page. When a royal and gallant pen, in the moment of its highest inspiration, has written down its tale with the rarest ink of all -- where, then, may one read a still deeper, sweeter, merrier and more cruel tale than that? Upon the blank page. ~ Isak Dinesen

A blank page has more power than a full page with blind thoughts. ~ Debasish Mridha

Writers are alphabet artists. The blank page becomes their canvas as they paint pictures with words. ~ Barbara Case Speers

It was like I was a blank page waiting for you to write our future together on it. ~ Kelly Elliott

Could anything top the promise and potential of a blank page? What could be more satisfying? Never mind that it would soon be crammed with awkward penmanship, that my handwriting inevitably sloped downhill to the right-hand corner, that I blotted my ink, that my drawings never came out the way I saw them in my head. Never mind all that. What counted was possibility. You could live on possibility, at least for a while. ~ Jacqueline Kelly

It's the silence that scares me. It's the blank page on which I can write my own fears. ~ Mark Lawrence

The Garden Under Snow
Now the garden is under snow
a blank page our footprints write on
clare who was never mine
but always belonged to herself
Sleeping Beauty
a crystalline blanket
this is her spring
this is her sleeping/awakening
she is waiting
everything is waiting
the improbable shapes of roots
my baby
her face
a garden, waiting. ~ Audrey Niffenegger

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Besides the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

- The Thought Fox ~ Ted Hughes

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they'll never let her get away.
From, The Joy of Writing, Wislawa Szymborska ~ Wislawa Szymborska

I still get up every morning at 4 A.M. I write seven days a week, including Christmas. And I still face a blank page every morning, and my characters don't really care how many books I've sold. ~ Dan Brown

Unfortunately, many people suffer from BPS - Blank Page Syndrome. Let's face it: starting to write is scary. Seeing the cursor blinking at you on that bright white screen, realizing that you now have to come up with three or ten or twenty pages of text all on your own - it's enough to give anyone a major case of writer's block! ~ Stefanie Weisman

I like writing a lot more than I used to. I used to find it scary but now I've got used to it once it gets going. I used to find it hard to start. Fear of the blank page. The first thing you write down won't bear any relation to what's in your head and that's always disappointing. ~ Victoria Wood

Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one. ~ Brad Paisley

Director and producers have to take all the risks they can. We developed this film with the possibility to create departing from a blank page and to discover things as the process went along and as we understood the things that at first we couldn't understand in words. ~ Alex Abreu

There's something about a blank page that makes me tingle. ~ Nikki Grimes

Only the blank page need never apologize. ~ Marty Rubin

And most, like me, were drawn to the miracle of the blank page and how, when seeded with letters, it blossomed into words and sentences and paragraphs and stories. ~ Sue Halpern

Writing is a solitary business. It's just you and your characters and a blank page you need to fill. ~ Shannon Celebi

They say that writers face the blank page. That's not true. It's more like 200 hundred blank pages! ~ R.S. Mellette

Lucifer looked over her shoulder. "What?"

Dahlia cleared her throat. "You stupid bitch, I hate you and love you. Do not wear anything Patience gave you, it's all ugly. I am going to write on every single blank page. Ha-ha! Love, the Faithful slut."

Lucifer scowled. "That person was mean to you."
Dahlia grinned. "No way, Faith was funny. I was the bitch, she was the slut, and Patience was the crack whore. ~ Darcy Town

I know what it's like to be distracted. To seek out distractions. To exhaust yourself doing every other little thing rather than face a blank page ~ Rainbow Rowell

If your life is a blank page, that only means you have room to write your story. You have the power to tell that story the way you want to. ~ Thea Harrison

I have a horror of the blank page. I simply cannot write on a blank page or screen. Because once I do, I start to fix it, and I never get past the first sentence. ~ Charles Krauthammer

You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair
the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page. ~ Stephen King

Everyday we just copy&paste ourselves from the previous day instead of creating a new blank page and be something different and original. ~ Marcelo Goianira

I do know what to do, just never more than one moment at a time. I stop explaining myself, because I learn that making decisions is never about doing the right thing or the wrong thing. It's about doing the precise thing. The precise thing is always incredibly personal and often makes no sense to anyone else. God speaks to folks directly ad one at a time, so I just listen and follow directions. And when I need to work anything out, I turn to the blank page. There, no one can steal my pain or try to poison my knowing, and there I always have the final word in my own story. ~ Glennon Doyle Melton

He set the RAM on the desk, then reached into his back pocket to pull out his grimoire. The size of a small paperback novel, it'd been a gift from Ambrose to help him understand some of the madness that surrounded him, and to answer some of the "other" questions that came up.

"All right, Nashira," Nick said in a low tone. "Talk to me. What the heck is watching me?"

He slid his knife out of his pocket, opened the book, and pricked his finger, allowing three drops of blood to touch a blank page. "Dredanya eire coulet" he whispered, waking the female spirit who lived inside the enchanted pages. The moment he finished speaking, his blood began swirling until it formed words:

Do not fear that which cannot be seen.
For they are lost in between.
'Tis the ones who come alive
That your blood will allow to thrive.

Nick snorted at the cryptic stanzas. "Not really useful, Nashira. Doesn't answer my question."

His blood crawled over to the next page.

Answer, answer, you always say,
But it doesn't work that way.
In time, the truth you shall find.
And then you will understand my rhyme.

"I'm such a masochist to even try talking to you"

Underneath the words, a picture of an obscene gesture formed.

"Oh very nice, Nashira. Very nice. Wherever did you learn that?"

In your pocket I reside.
Ever privy to your deride.
But more than that, I can see.
Sherrilyn Kenyon

Would you still read me when I become a blank page. ~ Jenim Dibie

There's something intimidating, yet exciting about a blank page. ~ Christopher Stocking

If God ever commands the spirit of wisdom to depart from me, well, I reckon that I'll never be able to compose the written word again. Not in music, and not in literature. If there is a blank page before me, it wouldn't matter if my right hand held a thousand dollar ink pen from the House of Montblanc, or an ink pen branded Paper Mate, not one word would be jotted from the ink of either or, and the page would remain blank. ("Primary Blog: The Final Post at the Boutique Domain," 2015) ~ Cat Ellington

When I was a boy, my mother would tell me that one of the best things in life is the knowledge that our story isn't over yet. Our story may have come to a close, but your story is still yet to be told.
Make it a story worthy of you ~ Renee Ahdieh

It came to me, as I walked, how bitter the irony of the Book had been which had said: Herein the Truth. For it had a truth of its own in its bleached barrenness. What was truth except something which faded, lost its shape, grew unreadable and indistinguishable, at last a blank page for men to write on what they wished. ~ Tanith Lee

You slogged from the terrifying emptiness of the blank page to the two most beautiful words in a writer's vocabulary: The End. ~ Lisa Cron

The hours spent forming a written work can make one obsessive, distracted, compulsive, and neurotic even, especially when it comes to those rare, precious occasions of streaming pure inspiration. To have a muse moment interrupted - to watch her scuttle back into hiding with unshared insight remaining on the tip of her tongue - is a wicked irritation. When a writer's eyes glaze over, when she stares off at nothing or appears to be memorizing the lines on a blank page, when she falls asleep at the desk ... tiptoe softly. For a writer's greatest desire is to receive inspiration; her greatest nightmare, to have tossed to the wind what could've been captured in words. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

It took me about three years to write About Grace. I wasn't teaching two of those years, so I was working eight-hour days, five days a week. And it would include research and reading - it wasn't just a blank page, laying down words. ~ Anthony Doerr

I live for the blank page. ~ Lisa Unger

For me, the beauty of the blank page, or empty screen,staring up at nine thirty after two cups of coffee and a deep breath remains unique. The blankness invites scribbling on, mental drawing , and the best feeling I know - apart from the more obvious sensual ones - is the feeling of putting down the first thought and seeing it turn into symbols. Making an idea into an emotion. ~ Adam Gopnik

Actually, who hasn't been through the ghastly experience of sitting in front of a blank page, with its toothless mouth grinning at you: Go ahead, let's see you lay a finger on me? A blank page is actually a whitewashed wall with no door and no window. Beginning to tell a story is like making a pass at a total stranger in a restaurant. ~ Amos Oz

it's never too late to change. Every day is a blank page, and your story has yet to be written. ~ Amy Zhang

Creativity is always a leap of faith. You're faced with a blank page, blank easel, or an empty stage. ~ Julia Cameron

Tortured Soul 101: The depth of despair one experiences during the creative process (as experienced say, in an abysmally blank page or canvas) is directly proportional to the scope and power of the work that emerges when it breaks. ~ F.T. McKinstry

The blank page is God's way of letting us know how hard it is to be God. ~ G.K. Chesterton

But tell me now, where was my fault in loving you with my whole heart? ~ Mumford & Sons

Each time you stare at a blank page, you end up staring at yourself. ~ Angelos Michalopoulos

You can't edit a blank page ~ Nora Roberts

Only the blank page needs no editing. ~ Marty Rubin

I feel emotions well
Inside my heart
Pulsating in rhythm
Straining for expression
I reach for pen & paper
And I am set free
On a blank page ~ Collette O'Mahony

On the blank page all things are possible. ~ Marty Rubin

You can fix anything but a blank page. ~ Nora Roberts

Life was a blank page written in invisible ink, a tale all told, just waiting to be deciphered. ~ Faye Kellerman

Every page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and small deliberations. ~ Francine Prose

As a writer, I can think of no greater terror than confronting a blank page, except perhaps the terror of being shot at. ~ Richard Castle

The problem with a plan is that you fill up the blank page of a new day with a 'to-do' list before you get there. And if you're not careful there's no room for anything else.
A plan, especially a very focused one, narrows down the possibilies of the future to just a couple of things: that things either go to plan, or they don't. ~ John C. Parkin

A blank page is no empty space. It is brimming with potential ... It is a masterpiece in waiting
yours. ~ A.A. Patawaran

Whatever the unknown in Europe, it had to be better than the known in a small town, where truth was hidden behind smiles, pleasantries, and an abundance of stretch lace at weddings. Whatever, the yet-to-be-written truth about her own life, it seemed certain to be waiting elsewhere on a blank page, somewhere people made no attempt to predict the future based upon a person's past.
Quote from: A Summer Abroad, Mrs. Duchesney's First Real Mystery
c. 2013 Peggy Kopman-Owens ~ Peggy Kopman-Owens

The video maker doesn't easily face a blank page. Because the videomaker can run it either any way, this way or the other way and erase it if they don't like it and so on. ~ Stan Brakhage

You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page. ~ Jodi Picoult

For the first time in my life, my future was a blank page. It was perfect. And beyond scary. ~ S.T. Bende

I am the poet, you are the poem; I hold the pen, you are the words, love is the ink, silence is the blank page. ~ Jenim Dibie

I like Stallone, because he writes. He sits down with a blank page and comes up with another Rambo movie. That isn't very easy for anybody. He's made it successful on top of that. ~ Dolph Lundgren

Olivia's heart pittered. A blank page. A pen in hand. Was there anything as exciting? The endless possibilities, the potential for beauty, even genius, waiting for that breath of life. ~ Terri-Lynne DeFino