M.J.E. > M.J.E.'s Quotes

“And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“I am torn open, unabridged, hot and a bit crazy inside. This is the feeling which belongs to me, she has always been mine.”
― Jamie Weise

“Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Love of the Last Tycoon

“I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“It's like I get into a roller coaster, and sit there while it goes up and down and upside down and sometimes I get thrown out and I hit my head, but I crawl back in again and the moment I'm back in, it just keeps on going and going again...all of this, so I can find things out and then I write about the things I find out so you can find them out from me. All the bruises, all the wounds, all the bumps on the head, all the scars, just so I can take that and I can write all these things, and sometimes I say "God, I don't want to be in this roller coaster anymore." But when I think about it, if I'm not right here, then where the hell would I be? On the sidewalk? I wasn't born to stand on the sidewalk, I was born to fly around crazy in the sky!”
― C. JoyBell C.

“If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.”
― Socrates

“I had hoped to be disliked by most, not by way of rebellion, but by way of excellence, disdain for the habitual, and the common man’s inability to grasp this. The act of being scorned? I saw it as a victory, my irreverent boast against this world which could never fully quench me.”
― Jamie Weise

“Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.”
― Julia Cameron, The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“Writing is supposed to be difficult, agonizing, a dreadful exercise, a terrible occupation.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories.”
― Neil Gaiman

“It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.”
― Robert Hass

“Some words may make you happy, some may make you said. Maybe some will make you angry. What I hope. . . what I hope is that something will whisper in your ear.”
― Patricia MacLachlan, Word After Word After Word

“Writers are a superior breed. No one else can face so much rejection and still thrive.”
― Susie Smith