So You Want To Be A Writer Quotes

If it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it. ~ Charles Bukowski

You can do better than that." He loops his arms around my waist and pulls me to him.
"Where are your gloves?"
"Better than that too." He drops a kiss on my collarbone. "Good to see you, Cass. I dreamed about you, Cass ... Feel free to improvise."
"Aren't you supposed to be wearing those work gloves? When you're working? Because otherwise your poor hands won't ... "
Gah. I sound like Mom, or the school nurse.
I'm no good at this.
Luckily, Cass is good enough for both of us. "I missed you, Gwen. It's good to see you, Gwen. I dreamed about you, Gwen. Yeah, haven't gotten around to the gloves. More important things to focus on. Want me to tell you what they are? ~ Huntley Fitzpatrick

I never want to be called a 'good loser.' Show me a good loser and I'll just show you a loser. ~ Stu Ungar

Sometimes, the medication that lifts depression also kills our drive and mutes our orgasms. So sex suffers either way: be happier on meds and feel dead "down there," or be miserable because you can't get out of bed much less want to get back in. ~ Laurie Watson

I wonder why anyone would hesitate to be generous with their writing. I mean, if you really want to make a living, go to Wall Street and trade oil futures ... We're writers. We're doing something that is inherently a generous act. We're exposing ourselves to the muse and to the things that frighten us. Why do that if you're not willing to be generous? And paradoxically, almost ironically, it turns out that the more generous you are, the more money you make. But that's secondary. For me, the privilege of being generous is why I get to do this. ~ Seth Godin

There are going to be days when you're undone, stressed out, tired spent.
And I'll still love you just as much in those moments as I ever have, maybe even a little more, because it'll mean you let me get close enough to know the real you. That's all I want. ~ Leo Christopher

Keep trying, especially at first. It can be very discouraging if your submissions keep being rejected by a publisher, but if your work is what people want to read, you should get there eventually! ~ Robin Jarvis

I don't want to go ( ... ) Maybe if you had already graduated, you could go with me. It would be a possibility. But, as long as you are here, that's where I am going to be ~ Tarryn Fisher

Now, we're doing this at my pace this morning. Mornings are supposed to be lazy. Morning sex is slow sex. So, you tell me. Do you want to have sex with me this morning, sweetheart? ~ Paloma Beck

Some of the best auditions I've ever had have been when my agent called and said, 'They want you 20 minutes ago, in an office in Century City, to see you for something.' I'm not sitting there thinking for a week and a half, before I'm supposed to go in front of a network president to do something. That just gives you time to be nervous. ~ Billy Campbell

Y'all got to love something. Y'all got to hate something. Y'all got to want something. Pissing on other people's passion 'cause you trying to be cool just make you a coward - a ~ Christopher Moore

There is an urge to believe that getting something you want will make you happy. The secret is to be happy without wanting anything. Is that so hard? ~ Chloe Thurlow

Comedy is probably a lot harder for me. Maybe it's because I've been doing drama for so long or maybe it's because ... you don't want to search for a laugh; you can't try to be funny, you just have to naturally be funny or be in a situation that's funny. ~ Nina Dobrev

If you want to save a species, simply decide to eat it. Then it will be managed - like chickens, like turkeys, like deer, like Canadian geese. ~ Ted Nugent

I'm quite aware of what I am, Kit. I know how people look at me. I'm the guy you see in some bar, being loud and obnoxious. I'm the jock at your college, throwing a basketball onto your desk as you're trying to study. I know I am. But I want more than that now. I'm too old to be playing games any more. ~ Charlotte Stein

I think when companies are struggling, they don't want to talk to the press. The guys who write business books aren't interested in it because nobody wants to learn what it's like to be a mess, you want to learn how to be successful. That's slanted the whole thing quite a bit. ~ Ben Horowitz

You can't get caught up in perfect. It's not about what the paddle says. If you immerse yourself every single day for three months in this journey, you're going to grow. You're going to learn stuff about yourself; you're going to overcome your obstacle--be it physical or emotional. That's what's important.
But I want to be 100 percent honest here: there are days when I'm freaking out and I don't have the answers. I get frustrated, but I try and see it as a temporary situation and a separate entity from who I am. I step away from it. I've learned a ton about myself and how to manage myself and my expectations. There have been days when I've said to my partner, "I need you to help me today." I put them in the teacher role, and they wind up giving me the pep talk: "We can do this, Derek. We can do it." They're saying it, they're doing it, they're believing it.
Before DWTS, my work was instinctual and internal. It was something I could never put into words. But being a teacher forced me to dissect what I was doing and explain it. Some partners I could be really tough with and they'd respond to me. Others would shut down. If I got a little intense with Jennifer Grey, it was counterproductive, because she would block me out. But if I did this to Maria Menounos, she would get a fire in her belly and try harder. I have to learn to adjust myself to cater to each partner's needs and style of learning. If the look I get from her is deer in the headlights, I know I am on the wr ~ Derek Hough

Nobody has ever felt pain but you,
agony is yours, make a necklace from it.
Chew it. Never spit it out.

You are the only one your age not
having fun. You are puzzled by life
because you were born one Sunday

too early. You will die on the wrong day too.
Try to drown more than once, preferably
in the same place. Fall in love.

Cut your tongue on him so many times
your language starts to bleed out
at the root. Reserve speech

only for begging. You are supposed to
want to dress like the girl at school
who pulled your hair. Hating yourself

is the diet for success. Let it bloat you.
Be the river that is always threatening
to burst. You are not special.

There is no pearl under your tongue. Your heart
has you by the throat. However hard
you try you will never fall back in love

with your life. ~ Beth McColl

That was the thing about restorative justice. It allowed you to hold two things in your head at the same time--that butt-slapping was funny, and also that it wasn't. That asking permission to touch somebody was funny, but that you really didn't want to be touched by somebody who didn't ask. That the girls wanted Jeff to dial back the ass-smacking thing, but that they still liked joking around with him. That the whole thing wasn't a big deal, and that it kind of was (239). ~ Dashka Slater

A thing is valued, she says, only if it is rare and hard to get. We want you to be valued, girls. Think of yourselves as pearls. We, sitting in our rows, eyes down, we make her salivate morally. We are hers to define, we must suffer her adjectives. ~ Margaret Atwood

My father and I used to tussle about me becoming an actor. He's from strong, Presbyterian Scottish working-class stock, and he used to sit me down and say, 'You know, 99 percent of actors are out of work. You've been educated, so why do you want to spend your life pretending to be someone else when you could be your own man?' ~ Tom Hiddleston

You always want to be a little in over your head and be challenged to get better. ~ Taylor Ho Bynum

Your true nature doesn't come out. So the gods let you do what you want because free will would be compromised if they showed up at the White House saying, 'Take us to your leader.' ~ Tarsem Singh

Well, you have to accept this.Check it out.You know how when someone dies, people are all sad and stuff?"
"Yeah?"
"Well,why are they sad?"
His face scrunched up quizzically and then brightened.
"Because they won't be able to see their loved ones again. They'll miss them."
"No!" she shouted, suddenly standing and pacing like a detective delivering the evidence to a room full of suspects.
"It's because they have to rely on faith that they will see that person again in heaven or ... "
Her eyes drifted toward the sky.
"Wherever. When someone close to you dies, your faith is at its shakiest. Even if you're an atheist."
He cocked his head to the side,"How do you figure?"
"It just happens. Death causes people to reevaluate their beliefs. It brings up questions you don't want to ask;it creates anxiety. ~ Daniel Marks

Sympathy, conscience, disgust, despair, repentance, and atonement are for us repellent debauchery. To sit down and let oneself be hypnotized by one's own navel, to turn up one's eyes and humbly offer the back of one's neck to Gletkin's revolver - that is an easy solution. The greatest temptation for the like of us is: to renounce violence, to repent, to make peace with oneself. Most great revolutionaries fell before this temptation, from Spartacus to Danton and Dostoevsky; they are the classical form of betrayal of the cause. The temptations of God were always more dangerous for mankind than those of Satan. As long as chaos dominates the world, God is ananachronism; and every compromise with one's own conscience is perfidy. When the accursed inner voice speaks to you, hold your hands over your ears. ..." He felt for the bottle behind him and poured out an other glass. Rubashov noticed that the bottle was already half empty. You also could do with a little solace, he thought.

"The greatest criminals in history," Ivanov went on, "are not of the type Nero and Fouché, but of the type Gandhi and Tolstoy. Gandhi's inner voice has done more to prevent the liberation of India than the British guns. To sell oneself for thirty pieces of silver is an honest transaction; but to sell oneself to one's own conscience is to abandon mankind. History is a priori amoral; it has no conscience. To want to conduct history according to the maxims of the Sunday school means to leave every ~ Arthur Koestler

There it is! Done! And you didn't even have to fuck me."
He stared at me.
"But you can still fuck me if you want to," I offered.
He kept staring at me.
"Like now. Fucking me now would be good," I prompted.
He kept staring at me.
"Hello? ... Calling Kai Mason, girlfriend needs a good fucking, right ... about ... now."
That's when he spoke.
And this is what he said.
"God, I love you. ~ Kristen Ashley

What difference does it make?" he says. "People can think whatever they like. I don't desire their validation."
"So you don't mind," I ask him, "that people judge you so harshly?"
"I have no one to impress," he says. "No one who cares about what happens to me. I'm not in the business of making friends, love. My job is to lead an army, and it's the only thing I'm good at. No one," he says, "would be proud of the things I've accomplished. My mother doesn't even know me anymore. My father thinks I'm weak and pathetic. My soldiers want me dead. The world is going to hell. And the conversations I have with you are the longest I've ever had. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I took a deep breath and kept my focus fixed on her. "Making me chase you wouldn't be a good idea right now, flower," I stated, fully aware of my Wolf.
"No, it wouldn't, but you need to stay over there," she said firmly.
My brow furrowed. "Why?"
"Because, if you come near me, I will want to kiss you," she said, nibbling her lower lip the way I wanted to.
"Well good, because I want to kiss you too." I moved back the way I had come, and so did she. "Clare - "
"No, not good." She shook her head. "Kissing leads to touching, or grinding, or" - she shuddered as her energy suggestively brushed against mine - "or petting, and almost stripping. ~ Elizabeth Morgan

Be the character you want to be described as!
(In a good way, of course!) ~ E.L. Tenenbaum

Our Father and our God, thank You for using people like me to spread Your Word to the world. I am the least likely person, I know, to be used for such a glorious work. Show me what You want me to do, Lord, and I'll do it. I know I can do it through the strength of Christ Jesus, my Lord. Amen. ~ Billy Graham

My army cries in protest. They don't understand. Golds don't do this. Golds don't sacrifice for one another. Leaders take; they do not give. My army cries out again. I ask them, how is this worse than the rape they were all so comfortable with? Is not Nyla now one of us? Is she not part of the body?

Like Reds are. Like Obsidians are. Like all the Colors are.

Pax tries to go light. But it's Pax, so when he's done, my back looks like chewed goatmeat. I stand up. Do everything I can to prevent myself from wobbling. I'm seeing stars. I want to wail. Want to cry. Instead, I tell them that anyone who does anything vile - they know what I mean - will have to whip me like this in front of the entire army. I see how they look at Tactus now, how they look at Pax, how they look at my back.

"You do not follow me because I am the strongest. Pax is. You do not follow me because I am the brightest. Mustang is. You follow me because you do not know where you are going. I do."

I motion Tactus to come toward me. He wavers, pale, confused as a newborn lamb. Fear marks his face. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the pain I willingly bore. Fear when he realizes how different he is from me.

"Don't be afraid," I tell him. I pull him forward into a hug. "We are blood brothers, you little shit. Blood brothers."

I'm learning. ~ Pierce Brown

You scare me, Ryan Daley. Even more than those demons outside that scream for my death. How is it that I want what you want? I've spent an eternity feeling powerless. Love did that to me - robbed me of all control. I never expected to feel this way again. I don't want to feel.'
'Neither did I,' Ryan rasps, 'because feeling anything at all was dangerous. If I let myself feel, then maybe I'd have to believe what everyone was saying - that Lauren was dead. But from the moment I laid eyes on "Carmen, you kept getting under my skin. At first, all you did was irritate the hell out of me, bailing me up that way outside my house, inviting yourself along for the ride when all I wanted was to be left alone. But that irritation turned into curiosity, which turned into something else, becoming this chain of, of … feeling that brought me here. I dropped everything for you. I veered left. And I'd do it again in a second. That's what "feeling" does. It tells you you're alive, it gives things … I don't know, proper meaning. You're still trying to maintain some veneer of independence? Toughness? Do words like that even apply to you? But I see through it, Mercy. I see through you. You're not that different from me after all, under your armour. Crumbs, Mercy, that's all I'm after. Just crumbs. It's not a lot to ask for. ~ Rebecca Lim

It's not so bad."
Melancholia looked at her. "You're lying."
"I'll get used to it. So will you."
"I ... I don't think I'll be able to."
"I'll be there to help when you need it."
"But I hate you."
Valkyrie smiled. "No you don't."
"No, I do. I want to kill you and stuff."
"We actually became friends in those caves."
"That's not what happened, " said Melancholia.
"We're pals. We're buddies."
"If my wrists weren't in shackles, my hands would be round your throat."
"You want to hug my throat because we're friends. ~ Derek Landy

So say I'm your mom.'
'What?' I said.
'I'm your mom,' he repeated. 'Now tell me you want to quit modeling.'
I could feel myself blushing. 'I can't do that,' I said.
'Why not?' he asked. 'Is it so hard to believe? You think I'm not a good role-player?'
'No,' I said. 'It's just–'
'Because I am. Everyone wanted me to be their mother in group.'
I just looked at him. 'I just… It's weird.'
'No, it's hard. But not impossible. Just try it.'
A week earlier, I hadn't even known what color his eyes were. Now, we were family. At least temporarily. ~ Sarah Dessen

The instrument that I never learned how to play was my fans. You know, they are the part of the story that nobody teaches you. I just want to do the right thing; I want to be a voice with them, among them. ~ Lady Gaga

I've seen so many scripts, and I want to do everything. Like with kiteboarding, you have to be fearless. I'm not scared. ~ Maika Monroe

You have a spine of steel and fire in your eyes, Rosalie. To have such a quality, one must be shaken to the foundation of one's soul and put back together. I want to know how you emerged from hell made of steel and fire. ~ Moriah Densley

Why do we act as though our sin disqualifies us from the grace of God? That is the only thing that qualifies us! Anything else is a self-righteous attempt to earn God's grace. You cannot trust God's grace 99 percent. It's all or nothing. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that we want partial credit for our salvation. We want to be 1 percent of the equation. But if we try to save ourselves, we forfeit the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ alone, by grace through faith. ~ Mark Batterson

You want to know about a good man? Man is the one who can carry the home and the family and have the strength to keep that weight going; woman is that which can nurture and nurse and be herself and can keep her radiance and have the strength of that. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi

Some people they simply just want to hear you. And others actually have things they want to share and talk with you about. So it's important for me to be as strong as I can when I leave home so I can hold space for all of it. ~ Jason Mraz

And so you live like this, day after day, striving and fighting simply to become, or even better - to be. Something better, something more. Something you can live as, live with. A little more developed, a little more define and decluttered. But then there's the people, the world, telling you over and over who you are and what you actually like and who you actually want to be, and so that real voice in your head speaks softer every day, until one day you wake up and it's gone. They killed it, these bastards, with their empty words and useless talk. These people who are acting like stones, walking without bending their knees, without rolling their feet. Talking with empty words and doing tasks without a heart. They broke it. Drowned it. These damn "experts". ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: 'Dad, I always told you I'd come back and get my degree.' I want to thank Harvard for this honor. I'll be changing my job next year and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume! ~ Bill Gates

So let us decide whether you want a shelter, a safety zone, which will no longer yield conflict, whether you want to escape from the present conflict to enter a condition in which there shall be no conflict; or whether you are unaware, unconscious of this conflict in which you exist. If you are unconscious of the conflict, that is, the battle that is taking place between that self and the environment, if you are unconscious of that battle, then why do you seek further remedies? Remain unconscious. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Because, after all, what we deeply want is pleasure and all our values are based on it. Pleasure is the constant factor for which we are willing to sacrifice, which we defend, for which we are willing to be violent and so on. But, if we watch pleasure, we will soon see that it, too, becomes a habit, and when that habit of pleasure is denied there is discomfort, pain and sorrow. And to avoid this we fall into another trap of pleasure.

So this is the way of life we have accepted. It is what is happening to us from morning to night, and throughout the night. So the whole of consciousness is mechanical in the sense that it is a constant movement, activity, within the borders of pleasure and pain. To go beyond these borders man has tried many different ways. But everything is soon reduced to the monotony of habit and pleasure; and if you have the energy you become very active, outwardly. Now the whole point of this is to see - actually, non-verbally - what is really taking place. To see non-verbally means to see without the observer, for the observer is the essence of habit and contradiction, which is memory. So seeing is never habitual because the seeing is non-accumulative. When you see from the accumulation you see through habits. So, seeing is action without habit. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

What do we do if we pass a law that says this has to be done, and then China says, oh, well, OK, we're going to pass that law too and we want access to every iPhone in China? Iran says the same thing, Russia says the same thing - you know, the bad guys go underground. They'll shift to some other encrypted platform. ~ Angus King

There is something exciting about this. Peter still doesn't want to have sex with Mizzy, but there is something thrilling about downing a shot of vodka with another man who happens to be naked. There's the covert brotherliness of it, a locker-room aspect, the low, masculine, eroticized love-hum that's not so much about the flesh as it is about the commonality. You, Peter, as devoted as you are to your wife, as completely as you understand her very real worries on Mizzy's behalf, also understand Mizzy's desire to make his own way, to avoid that maelstrom of womanly ardor, that distinctly feminine sense that you will be healed, whether you want to be or not.
Men are united in their commonness, maybe it's as simple as that. ~ Michael Cunningham