Sofia Ashford > Sofia's Quotes

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
― Philip Pullman

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”
― Frank Herbert

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.”
― Neil Gaiman

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
― Louis L'Amour

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
― W. Somerset Maugham

“The first draft of anything is shit.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
― Stephen King

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“I choose to believe that I owe my very
life to you--ay--smile, and think it an exaggeration if you will.
I believe it, because it adds a value to that life to think--oh,
Miss Hale!' continued he, lowering his voice to such a tender
intensity of passion that she shivered and trembled before him,
'to think circumstance so wrought, that whenever I exult in
existence henceforward, I may say to myself, "All this gladness
in life, all honest pride in doing my work in the world, all this
keen sense of being, I owe to her!" And it doubles the gladness,
it makes the pride glow, it sharpens the sense of existence till
I hardly know if it is pain or pleasure, to think that I owe it
to one--nay, you must, you shall hear'--said he, stepping
forwards with stern determination--'to one whom I love, as I do
not believe man ever loved woman before.' He held her hand tight
in his. He panted as he listened for what should come. ”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South