Thursday, September 10, 2009

Some of my favorite quotes







I like to begin my workshops by sharing a few of my favorite quotes. Today I am going to share a few of them in the hopes they may inspire you, make you laugh and above all help us not to take ourselves too seriously!

Writers aren’t exactly people…they are a whole lot of people trying to be one person.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It is greed plain and simple. When my characters join the circus, I’m joining the circus. Although I’m happily married, I spend a great deal of time mentally living with incompatible husbands.
Ann Tyler (1941- )

I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.
E. M. Forster
“Two Cheers for Democracy” (1951)

A well composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way. Caroline Gordan (1895-1981)

A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return. Samuel Rushdie
Imaginary Homelands (1992)

In all my work what I try to say is that as human beings we are more alike than we are unalike.
Maya Angelou
Interview in New York Times
(January 20, 1993)

It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous. Robert Benchley (1889-1945)

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience.
Henry David Thoreau
Walden (1854)

I like a thin book because it will steady a table, a leather volume because it will strop a razor, and a heavy book because it can be thrown at a cat. Mark Twain (1835-1910)

And last but not least:

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of the night.
Attributed to P. J. O’Rouke (1947-

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the giggles - great quotes!

Jeanette Levellie said...

I love Benchley's. But not Twain's. My cats are my babies in fur suits.

Robin Bayne said...

Really liked the last one : )

Anonymous said...

Oh, these are good. :-)

Tana said...

Great quotes!
I have one I recall often in relation to writing, although for the life of me I can't remember the author.
'There is no Easter without Good Friday.'
So true, in so many ways.

Wandering Writer said...

Loved that last one! I have this one near my computer:
Even though you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there--Will Rogers.