Patrice Caldwell > Patrice's Quotes

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

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

“In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it 'got boring,' the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Just remember that Dumbo didn't need the feather; the magic was in him. ”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave duiring a period of severe sunspot activity.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“The idea that the creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time. ... Substance abusing writers are just substance abusers — common garden variety drunks and druggies, in other words. Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit. I've heard alcoholic snowplow drivers make the same claim, that they drink to still the demons.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”
― Stephen King

“Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.”
― Meg Cabot

“Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul.”
― Toni Morrison, The Nobel Lecture In Literature, 1993

“People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy.”
― Joss Whedon

“You can fix anything but a blank page.”
― Nora Roberts

“The best stories don't come from "good vs. bad" but "good vs. good.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”
― Anne Frank

“I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief... I'm not in the business of offending people. I find the books upholding certain values that I think are important, such as life is immensely valuable and this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place. We should do what we can to increase the amount of wisdom in the world.

[Washington Post interview, 19 February 2001]”
― philip pullman

“You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Good fiction creates its own reality.”
― Nora Roberts, The Stanislaski Brothers: Mikhail and Alex

“Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.”
― Stephen King

“Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something real happens.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent

“You'll stay with me?'
Until the very end,' said James.”
― J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“Killing you is not the worst thing they can do to you," I say. "Controlling you is.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent

“Learning how to think in the midst of fear is a lesson that everyone needs to learn.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“And is it selfish of me to crave victory, or is it brave?”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent