Delusions Of Business Writing Quotes

The Delusion of Lasting Success promises that building an enduring company is not only achievable but a worthwhile objective. Yet companies that have outperformed the market for long periods of time are not just rare, they are statistical artifacts that are observable only in retrospect. Companies that achieved lasting success may be best understood as having strung together many short-term successes. Pursuing a dream of enduring greatness may divert attention from the pressing need to win immediate battles.

The Delusion of Absolute Performance diverts our attention from the fact that success and failure always take place in a competitive environment. It may be comforting to believe that our success is entirely up to us, but as the example of Kmart demonstrated, a company can improve in absolute terms and still fall further behind in relative terms. Success in business means doing things better than rivals, not just doing things well. Believing that performance is absolute can cause us to take our eye off rivals and to avoid decisions that, while risky, may be essential for survival given the particular context of our industry and its competitive dynamics.

The Delusion of the Wrong End of the Stick lets us confuse causes and effects, actions and outcomes. We may look at a handful of extraordinarily successful companies and imagine that doing what they did can lead to success - when it might in fact lead mainly to higher volatility and a lower over ~ Philip M. Rosenzweig

WHO IS- OR WAS- YOUR FAVORITE WRITER?

For style and consistency, I would have to say John Updike. No one else in the world writes the way that he does, and very few have enjoyed the longevity of career or employed the breadth of scope that he has. Mailer's a close second, but they are completely different animals. Bret Easton Ellis, whom I unintentionally left off of my answer to the previous question, is good as well- he creates a goodly number of inimitable situations, and his dexterity of language produces many, many killer lines- lines that belong in any literate person's lexicon. I would say the same for Jay McInerney as well. But Easton's output is spotty: every other book is crap. He did Less Than Zero, and that was fucking amazing, and then he did The Rules Of Attraction. After that, he wrote American Psycho- a brilliant but sadly misunderstood book at the time- but the follow-up, Glamorama, sucked horribly. At least, in my humble opinion. After that, I kind of lost interest. If you occasionally throw off a collection of shitty writing, it does affect your credibility when you seek to speak with your constituency about matters of life and death. Fiction is a deadly serious business, and if you're dry and out of ideas, then just fucking say so and keep working at it until you're finally writing something that it would be a crime not to let other people read. ~ Larry Mitchell

I think the business of writing a great deal of it is the business of paying attention to your characters, to the world they live in, to the story you have to tell, but just a kind of deep attention and out of that if you pay attention properly the story will tell you what it needs. ~ Salman Rushdie

In the first 27 years of my life, I never had written a single non-technical word. I went to engineering college and went to business school. I never knew I could write fiction of any form. ~ Karan Bajaj

Till the time I found a creative outlet, I was trying to be extra creative at business, which would always put me in a situation of conflict with other stakeholders. The moment I started writing, my creative impulses were finally channelised. ~ Ashwin Sanghi

After a while the business end of writing takes too much of the writing time. Better to pay someone ten percent and find that you're still more than ten percent ahead in the end. Which is true. My present agent says that he always feels that a good agent during the course of a year should earn back for his client at least the ten percent he takes by way of commission, so the client's really nothing out. And what he should ideally do is make him more money than the ten percent. ~ Roger Zelazny

Without extraneous words or phrases or clauses, there will be room for implication. The longer the sentence, the less it's able to imply, And writing by implication should be one of your goals. Implication is almost nonexistent in the prose that surrounds you, The prose of law, science, business, journalism, and most academic fields. It was nonexistent in the way you were taught to write. That means you don't know how to use one of a writer's most important tools: The ability to suggest more than the words seem to allow, The ability to speak to the reader in silence. ~ Verlyn Klinkenborg

The prophesying business is like writing fugues; it is fatal to every one save the man of absolute genius. ~ H.L. Mencken

Lemat's agent says to him: y duty to you, first and foremost, is make sure you have a career, a prosperous one. I know authors always want to pander to their more artistic leanings, but this is a business after all. You have to do something to pay the bills so you can keep on writing. If you wanted to be an author just for the sake of expressing your thoughts, you could have done that by staying self-published, am I correct? but that's not what you wanted. That's not why you penned Killing Jesus. You wanted to get out there and swim in a bigger pond, didn't you? Well, here you are. Welcome to the blooming ocean. ~ Henry Mosquera

In other words, I have tried to learn in my writing a monastic lesson I could probably not have learned otherwise: to let go of my idea of myself, to take myself with more than one grain of salt ... In religious terms, this is simply a matter of accepting life, and everything in life as a gift, and clinging to none of it, as far as you are able. You give some of it to others, if you can. Yet one should be able to share things with others without bothering too much about how they like it, either, or how they accept it. Assume they will accept it, if they need it. And if they don't need it, why should they accept it? That is their business. Let me accept what is mine and give them all their share, and go my way. ~ Thomas Merton

Essentials of how to do a startup do not include writing a business plan ~ Steve Blank

But writing is a queer business. If one does anything that is sharp and keep enough to go over the line, to get itself with the work that is taken seriously, one has to have had either an unusual knowledge of or a peculiar sympathy with the characters one handles. One can't write about what one most admires always - you must, by some accident, have seen into your character very deeply, and it is this accident of intense realization of him that give your writing about him tone and distinction, that lifts it above the commonplace, in other words ~ Willa Cather

I've had to keep defining and defending myself as a writer every single day of my adult life
constantly reminding and re-reminding my soul and the cosmos that I'm very serious about the business of creative living, and that I will never stop creating, no matter what the outcome, and no matter how deep my anxieties and insecurities may be. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

What would normal people think if they knew what went on in a writer's mind below the surface? They'd think him even more around the bend than they had previously supposed if they could see the witches' cauldron of images and memories boiling up from the subconscious, impressions whirling in from without, ideas and insights bursting up like bubbles and gone again before they can be seized. And the hopelessness of the business, the whole infuriating, exhausting, fascinating business of grabbing something out of the turmoil and imposing upon it some faint shadow or rumor of the order, pattern and rhythm of the world. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

Writing is a solitary business. It takes over your life. In some sense, a writer has no life of his own. Even when he's there, he's not really there. ~ Paul Auster

I think the business of music has really taken a huge hit. There's no doubt about it. But an artist is always going to produce their art, their music. They're going to paint, they're going to write. ~ Gloria Estefan

I've been able to write at least one book a year for 20 years, and I don't think I would've had that kind of drive if I hadn't come out of the journalism business. ~ Michael Connelly

If you want to be a singer, you've got to concentrate on it twenty-four hours a day. You can't be a well driller, too. You've got to concentrate on the business of entertaining and writing songs. Always think different from the next person. Don't ever do a song as you heard somebody else do it. ~ Otis Redding

Writing about yourself is a funny business. At the end of the day it's just another story, the story you've chosen from the events of your life. I haven't told you "all" about myself. Discretion and the feelings of others don't allow it. But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise: to show the reader his mind. In these pages I've tried to do that. ~ Bruce Springsteen

Although they only give gold medals in the field of athletics, I encourage everyone to look into themselves and find their own personal dream, whatever that may be - sports, medicine, law, business, music, writing, whatever. The same principles apply. Turn your dream into a goal and learn how to attack that goal systematically. Break it into bite-size chunks that seem possible, and then don't give up. Just keep plugging away. ~ John Naber

Before I had published anything, I still hung out with people who liked to write. None of us had published, so there was no talk about the business, and there was probably a lot more angsty talk back then. But these days maybe there are some more laments about the culture, but I would say no. ~ Chang-rae Lee

It was then that I saw the business of writing for what it truly was and is to me. It is your penance for not being lucky. It is an attempt to reach others and to make them love you. It is your instinctive protest, when you find you have no voice at the world's tribunals, and that no one will speak for you. I would give my entire output of words, past, present and to come, in exchange for easier access to the world, for permission to state "I hurt" or " I hate" or " I want". Or indeed, "Look at me". And I do not go back on this. For once a thing is known it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten. And writing is the enemy of forgetfulness, or thoughtlessness. For the writer there is no oblivion. Only endless memory. ~ Anita Brookner

I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn't a popularity contest, it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church. But it's Writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe. ~ Stephen King

Don't you sometimes find daily life almost unbearably poetic? Minute curiosity is a requirement of the travel writer – as it is of the biographer, novelist and poet. The significance of the trivial is what makes a piece of travel writing human, not the stuntish business of being the first person to paddle the Congo. Out there on the road, I have often found that the most aimless and boring interludes yield, in the long run, the most fertile material. ~ Sara Wheeler

The business of writing a novel is a long, meandering road into the self, into the imagination. And it's a road the writer travels alone. ~ Lisa Unger

Writing is a long and lonesome business; back of the problems in thought and composition hover always the awful questions: Is this the page that shows the empty shell? Is it here and now that they find me out? ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

Writing blurbs for books means you have to read the book, and it cuts into the business of bookselling. So every time I get a blurb from a bookseller, I try to write a thank you note. ~ Gabrielle Zevin

Business book writing for me is when some set of ideas gets stuck in my mind, I write a book about it. I haven't got a theory and I haven't got a framework. ~ Tom Peters

After you have finished a piece of work, the work is then none of your business. Go on and do something else. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I wish I could write a book that will be read for as long as our civilization lasts ... I would value it much more highly than any business success if I could contribute to an understanding of the world in which we live or, better yet, if I could help to preserve the economic and political system that has allowed me to flourish as a participant. ~ George Soros

April 6 - Today, I learned, the comma, this is, a, comma (,) a period, with, a tail, Miss Kinnian, says its, importent, because, it makes writing, better, she said, somebody, could lose, a lot, of money, if a comma, isnt in, the right, place, I got, some money, that I, saved from, my job, and what, the foundation, pays me, but not, much and, I dont see how, a comma, keeps, you from, losing it,
But, she says, everybody, uses commas, so Ill, use them, too,,,,

April 7 - I used the comma wrong. Its punctuation…Miss Kinnian says a period is punctuation too, and there are lots of other marks to learn.
She said; You, got. to-mix?them!up: She showd? me" how, to mix! them; up, and now! I can. mix (up all? kinds of punctuation - in, my. writing! There" are lots, of rules; to learn? but. Im' get'ting them in my head:
One thing? I, like: about, Dear Miss Kinnian: (thats, the way? it goes; in a business letter (if I ever go! into business?) is that, she: always; gives me' a reason" when - I ask. She"s a gen'ius! I wish? I could be smart-like-her;
Punctuation, is? fun! ~ Daniel Keyes

Out of hundreds of deals that I've done, hundreds, on four occasions I've taken advantage of the laws of this country, like other people. I'm not going to name their names because I'm not going to embarrass, but virtually every person that you read about on the front page of the business sections, they've used the law.The difference is, when somebody else uses those laws, nobody writes about it. When I use it, they say, "Trump, Trump, Trump." ~ Donald Trump

For new atheists, the science is settled, the data is conclusive and the book (no, not the "Good Book") has been written. Time for everyone else to pack up and move on to other business, like, presumably, accumulating wealth and fulminating at the sight of the nearest Christmas tree. The militant atheist wants nothing more than to spoil the believer's spiritual journey. That's both mean-spirited and radically unenlightened. Though more than 95% of the world finds some meaning in faith, God-hating comic Bill Maher shrugs this off as a "neurological disorder." His version of a quest for knowledge was a series of scathing jokes at the faithfuls' expense in the documentary "Religulous." The latest incarnation of the thought-eschewing secularist is American Atheists spokesman Dave Silverman, who sums up the argument this way on atheistnexus.org: "Religion is my bitch." He has also tweeted, "Yes it is a myth. Deal with it. All delusions are myths." It's these snarky and condescending rejections, not of faith itself but of those who profess it, that reflect a total unwillingness to learn something new about human nature, the world around us and even of science itself. While the neo-atheists pay only cursory attention to dismantling arguments for God, they spend most of their time painting his followers as uncultured rubes. The fact that religion has inexplicably persisted, even despite Copernicus, Darwin and the Enlightenment, doesn't seem to have much sociological meaning for them. ~ S.E. Cupp

11 WAYS TO BE UNREMARKABLY AVERAGE 1. Accept what people tell you at face value. 2. Don't question authority. 3. Go to college because you're supposed to, not because you want to learn something. 4. Go overseas once or twice in your life, to somewhere safe like England. 5. Don't try to learn another language; everyone else will eventually learn English. 6. Think about starting your own business, but never do it. 7. Think about writing a book, but never do it. 8. Get the largest mortgage you qualify for and spend 30 years paying for it. 9. Sit at a desk 40 hours a week for an average of 10 hours of productive work. 10. Don't stand out or draw attention to yourself. 11. Jump through hoops. Check off boxes. ~ Chris Guillebeau

Ah, typical writing day? Well, I tend to do e-mail and the business stuff of writing more in the morning while my brain wakes up and then write more in the afternoon, sometimes from about 11 until 5, or 12 until 5. If a story is driving me nuts, I'll work more in the evenings, but usually I try not to do that. That's family time. ~ Shiloh Walker

According to St. Augustine, the left hand represented the temporal, the mortal, and the bodily, as opposed to the right, which stood for "God, eternity, the years of God which fail not."25 For centuries the preference for the right hand over the left governed how people fished, ploughed fields, twisted rope, and ate their meals. The Greeks and Romans, for example, always reclined on the left side, propped on the left elbow, leaving the right hand free for the business of eating and drinking. Plutarch noted that parents taught children to eat right-handed from a young age, and "if they do put forth the left hand, at once we correct them."26 The prejudice against the left hand persisted during the Renaissance, with parents freeing a child's right hand from its swaddling clothes to ensure right-handedness at the dinner table as well as at the writing desk. ~ Ross King

If you want to write anything that works, you have to go with the grain of your talent, not against it. If your talent is inert and sullen in the face of business or politics ... but takes fire at the thought of ghosts and vampires and witches and demons then feed the flames, feed the flames. ~ Philip Pullman

Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Anuj Bahari has always been a really good literary agent for me. What a good agent does is that he manages many of your business aspects so you can keep your time free for writing. ~ Amish Tripathi

Maybe the trick was not to panic. In life, as in the bewildering business of writing stories and flinging them out into the world, you had to focus on the page in front of you. ~ Scott Westerfeld

The museums in children's minds, I think, automatically empty themselves in times of utmost horror - to protect the children from eternal grief.
For my own part, though: It would have been catastrophe if I had forgotten my sister at once. I had never told her so, but she was the person I had always written for. She was the secret of whatever artistic unity I had ever achieved. She was the secret of my technique. Any creation which has any wholeness and harmoniousness, I suspect, was made by an artist or inventor with an audience of one in mind.
Yes, and she was nice enough, or Nature was nice enough, to allow me to feel her presence for a number of years after she died - to let me go on writing for her. But then she began to fade away, perhaps because she had more important business elsewhere. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be? ~ Anne Lamott