Writers Lives Quotes

In the old days,' he said, 'writers' lives were more interesting than their writing. Now-a-days neither their lives nor the writing is interesting. ~ Charles Bukowski

Writers' lives break into two halves, ~ John Updike

If you want to know what makes you happy, imagine your very last day on this earth. Think about who you would wish to spend it with, where you might be and what you might be doing. For me, I would wish to spend it with the ones I love, somewhere not far from Nature, by the ocean, or maybe in a vibrant city, in a street with sights and sounds of people. Perhaps there's a vista of a fountain or a river... and watching the world go by, I'd be writing, completing the last chapter to a final book ... ~ Suzy Davies

People, fearing their own extinction, are willing to accept and perpetuate hand-me-down answers to the meaning of life and death; and, fearing a weakening of the tribal structures that sustain them, reinforce with their tales the conventional notions of justice, freedom, law and order, nature, family, etc. The writer, lone rider, has the power, if not always the skills, wisdom, or desire, to disturb this false contentment. ~ Robert Coover

We spend so much of our lives waiting to be ambushed by heartbreak. Why couldn't we be ambushed by joy? ~ Cinda Williams Chima

Our lives speak loudly to those around us, especially the children in our home. ~ Billy Graham

On the path of Love we are neither masters nor the owners of our lives. We are only a brush in the hand of the Master Painter. ~ Rumi

I'm going to make my life everyday about being a blessing in people's lives. If I'm a blessing to people's lives, then there will be nothing to worry about again. ~ Tony Robbins

Your body, the only one you will ever have, is the foundation of your life. And it's either an anchor limiting your freedom and potential or a source of radiant energy, vitality and joy, elevating your life and the lives of those around you. It's your choice ... will yours be a source of strength, from which you will impact the world, or an obstacle, preventing you from your dreams and desires? ... As my friend, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway is fond of saying,'If you're going to bother setting a goal, aim high!' ... My advice to you, aim high; aim for strength. ~ Shawn Phillips

Yes, we are raw. Yes, we are in the dark belly of a whale. Yes, we ache. Who can be Jesus' "little sunbeam" at such a time? Would Jesus even want such a thing? He is after much more than happiness in our lives. He is after a sustaining joy and he will give us that joy by giving us himself, whether through the small gifts of life that bring us gladness or through the dark night of suffering. Sweeping affliction under the rug of our heart, therefore, is simple denial, an act of cowardice, and act of ungratefulness. We must dare to look it square in the eyes. ~ Ben Palpant

Fresh, solid ideas feel like gifts to writers, therefore every morning is Christmas. ~ Criss Jami

The storm is here and now. The rains come and water floods our lives. Nothing last forever and the rainbow always appears. ~ Michaelson Williams

I have argued that this sort of thinking is problematic in at least two regards:

First, the notion that nonhuman animals do not have an interest in continued existence - that they do not have an interest in their lives - involves relying on a speciesist concept of what sort of self-awareness matters morally. I have argued that every sentient being necessarily has an interest in continued existence - every sentient being values her or his life - and that to say that only those animals (human animals) who have a particular sort of self-awareness have an interest in not being treated as commodities begs the fundamental moral question. Even if, as some maintain, nonhuman animals live in an "eternal present" - and I think that is empirically not the case at the very least for most of the nonhumans we routinely exploit who do have memories of the past and a sense of the future - they have, in each moment, an interest in continuing to exist. To say that this does not count morally is simply speciesist.

Second, even if animals do not have an interest in continuing to live and only have interests in not suffering, the notion that, as a practical matter, we will ever be able to accord those interests the morally required weight is simply fantasy. The notion that we property owners are ever going to accord any sort of significant weight to the interests of property in not suffering is simply unrealistic. Is it possible in theory? Yes. Is it possible as a matter of ~ Gary L. Francione

It is more true to say that our opinions depend upon our lives and habits, than to say that our lives and habits depend on our opinions. ~ Frederick William Robertson

And like all the people who lost no one, the tourists, who go to New York to cry over the rubble. I want to tell them to go home and hold their children or their lovers or their parents. I want to tell them that they are using that place as an excuse to be sad and afraid when there will be reason enough for that in their own lives if they just wait. ~ Philip Beard

It had been a windy night, that night where his life had taken its turning. The atmosphere, in flood, was trying to wash the trees right off the hills. The big oaks twisted and shuddered like black flames in the moonlight, and the white grass rippled and bannered.

The wind that night made him feel his chronic longing. The wind, trying to stampede the trees, was roaring for a grand, universal departure to another solar system, a better deal, and the grass struggled to join the rootless giant of the air. All that lives strives to fly, to master time. All tribes of beings strain to rise in insurrection, all knowing their time is short, all, when the wind blows, wanting to climb aboard. ("The Growlimb") ~ Michael Shea

I do not think writers ought ever to sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme, or something. If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge. ~ Doris Lessing

Dischord lives with us, even in the harmony of the Order. You can see the fallen buildings of Allbreaking if you look to the other side of the river. The bridge between Bankside and Paul's shakes and stirs. The people run but never fast enough. There is no bridge between Bankside and Paul's now, but in the streets and markets, the kids sing the old forecast, like it is still taking place, like it is always taking place. London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair Lady. ~ Anna Smaill

People say, 'What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?' I say, they don't really need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they're gonna do it. Those people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it. ~ R.L. Stine

In each of us lies sleeping beauty, wasted potential, dying dreams. We sleep and live in dormant twilight, never knowing what it means to live, to love the bits of heaven that we can unearth deep in our hearts; not recognizing that our salvation is ever-present in those parts that we have disowned, denied, forgotten. The thorns of fear thwart faint attempt. The prince is courage, the kiss believing and then with these our life begins. ~ Kay Thompson

There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country. ~ Hillary Clinton

The advantage of pure, and the disadvantage of impure air are experienced each time we breathe, and all who understand the causes of disease know that an impure atmosphere is most unfavourable to the enjoyment of health, and an efficient cause to shorten human existence within the natural life of man. It is therefore most desirable that decisive measures should be devised and generally adopted to ensure to all a pure atmosphere, in which to live during their lives. ~ Robert Owen

Let others be afraid, but the soul is not afraid of anything. It lives according to its own laws. It is bigger than space and older than time. It gives courage against all the misfortunes of life. - RALPH WALDO EMERSON ~ Leo Tolstoy

What I loved in my old life--I haven't forgotten--it lives in my spine. ~ Leonard Cohen

For many years now I have listened to the stories of people with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses as their counselor. From them I have learned how to enjoy the minute particulars of life once again, the grace of a hot cup of coffee, the presence of a friend, the blessing of having a new cake of soap or an hour without pain. Such humble experience is the stuff that many of the very best stories are made of. If we think we have no stories it is because we have not paid enough attention to our lives. Most of us live lives that are far richer and more meaningful than we appreciate. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

So I'm beginning to think that when I'm fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety years old I still won't be any closer to being wise and knowledgeable. Perhaps people on their deathbeds, who have had long, long lives, seen it all, travelled the world, have had kids, been through their own personal traumas, beaten their demons and learned the harsh lessons of life will be thinking : God, people in heaven must really know it all. ~ Cecelia Ahern

What will people remember us for? Are other people's lives better because we lived? Did we make a difference? Did we use to the fullest the gifts and abilities God gave us? Did we give our best effort, and did we do it for the right reasons? ~ Tony Dungy

Time management is only a set of skills and tools to help us more efficiently control the eventsour our lives. ~ Hyrum W. Smith

But then, maybe loneliness didn't have anything to do with how many people we had in our lives. Maybe it was really about how we felt on the inside.

And maybe I should go ahead and let myself feel these things, instead of always trying to push down and deny every negative emotion. Maybe they were just a part of me, and maybe it was okay to not always feel happy and positive. I was forever trying to silence that other part of myself, but maybe I'd feel more whole if I stopped doing that. ~ Alexa Land

Divinity of art, it's such a mystery. How to convince people that no matter how much money you can spend on education and art education especially, that it implants, it directs a young person for the rest of their lives, and always in the most humane and positive and dignified manner. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov

[L]ike people, ideas have social lives. They're one way when they're by themselves, and another when they're surrounded by their peers. Crammed together, they grow more uncertain, more interesting, more surprising; they come out of themselves and grow more appealing, and funnier. You wouldn't want all of intellectual life to be that social--we couldn't make progress that way. But there's a special atmosphere that develops whenever truly different ideas congregate, and, on the whole, it's too rare. ~ Joshua Rothman

Our slower pace of life, our thoughtfulness, our spiritual and intellectual depth, and our listening abilities are prophetic qualities for the evangelical community, calling us to a renewed understanding of God and a fresh reading on the abundant life Jesus came to give us. Yet because of the extroverted bias in many of our churches, introverts are leading double lives. We are masquerading as extroverts in order to find acceptance, yet we feel displaced and confused. We are weary of fighting our introversion, and we long to live faithfully as the people we were created to be. ~ Adam S. McHugh

Men may yearn for peace, cry for peace, and work for peace, but there will be no peace until they follow the path pointed out by the Living Christ. He is the true light of men's lives. ~ David O. McKay

An active investor is someone who actually lives off their investments as opposed to wages from a job. ~ Robert Kiyosaki

It makes a great difference to the look of a novel whether its author believes that the world came late into being and continues to come by a creative act of God, or whether he believes that the world and ourselves are the product of a cosmic accident. It makes a great difference to his novel whether he believes that we are created in God's image, or whether he believes we create God in our own. It makes a great difference whether he believes that our wills are free, or bound like those of the other animals. ~ Flannery O'Connor

When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don't fit with who we think we're supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving. ~ Brene Brown

Why, he wondered, did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions - not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers? ~ Isaac Asimov

I've been trying to find women writers for my staff for a while now and I have three women on my staff and three guys so it's pretty equal. I don't know why that is. It's been the same thing for a while. It's hard for female comedians to stand out. That's weird. That's a shame. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

Amy Martin (ladysky) and Daniel Baciagalupo had a month to spend on Charlotte Turner's island in Georgian Bay; it was their wilderness way of getting to know each other before their life together in Toronto began. We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly
as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth
the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.
Little Joe was gone, but not a day passed in Daniel Baciagalupo's life when Joe wasn't loved or remembered. The cook had been murdered in his bed, but Dominic Baciagalupo had had the last laugh on the cowboy. Ketchum's left hand would lvie forever in Twisted River, and Six-Pack had known what to do with the rest of her old friend ~ John Irving

My own foundation concentrates on women's economic empowerment on the basis that if women have their own money and are able to support themselves, they can make choices about what happens to them in their lives, about whether they have education, whether they get married, and what happens to their children. ~ Cherie Blair

The cynic finds love with the idealist. The rebel with the conformist. The social butterfly with the bookworm. They help each other balance their lives. ~ Joyce Brothers

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Words play an enormous part in our lives and are therefore deserving of the closest study. ~ Aldous Huxley

In contrast to happiness stands joy. Running deeper and stronger, joy is the quiet, confident assurance of God's love and work in our lives - that he will be there no matter what! Happiness depends on happenings, but joy depends on Christ. ~ Anonymous