If You Want to Write

“These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas, such as: "I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget." But they have no slow, big ideas.”

PeopleThinkingLittlesI CanIdeasBigsCuttingBusyBudgetsMeatMiceAnnualsBig Ideas

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“I hate orthodox criticism. I don't mean great criticism, like that of Matthew Arnold and others, but the usual small niggling, fussy-mussy criticism, which thinks it can improve people by telling them where they are wrong, and results only in putting them in straitjackets of hesitancy and self-consciousness, and weazening all vision and bravery.”

PeopleThinkingMeanSelfHateResultsConsciousnessVisionCriticismI HateBraveryOrthodoxUsualSelf ConsciousnessMatthewFussy

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“If we don't act at all (express our imaginings either in work or a changing personality, so that we can learn and think again something better) we certainly rot.”

IfsThinkingChangeWorkPersonalitySomething Better

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“it is when you are really living in the present-working, thinking, lost, absorbed in something you care about very much, that you are living spiritually.”

ThinkingMomentsCareLostLive In The MomentLive In The PresentReally Living

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“People who try to boss themselves always want (however kindly) to boss other people. They always think they know best and are so stern and resolute about it they are not very open to new and better ideas.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWantTryingIdeasOpinionBossResolute

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“Don't think of yourself as an intestinal tract and tangle of nerves in the skull, that will not work unless you drink coffee. Think of yourself as incandescent power, illuminated perhaps and forever talked to by God and his messengers.... Think if Tiffany's made a mosquito, how wonderful we would think it was!”

IfsThinkingMadeForeverWonderfulHuman NatureDrinkCoffeeNervesThink Of YouSkullsMessengersMosquitoesTiffany's

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“Know that it is good to work. Work with love and think of liking it when you do it.”

ThinkingKnowsWork

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“We have come to think that duty should come first. I disagree. Duty should be a by-product. Writing, the creative effort, the use of the imagination, should come first – at least, for some part of every day of your life. It is a wonderful blessing if you use it. You will become happier, more enlightened, alive, impassioned, light-hearted and generous to everybody else. Even your health will improve. Colds will disappear and all the other ailments of discouragement and boredom.”

IfsThinkingShouldWritingFirstsUseLightImaginationEffortCreativeAliveWonderfulDutyProductsBlessingDisappearGenerousBoredomEnlightenedDisagreeHeartedDiscouragementAilmentsImpassionedLight Hearted

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“Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be.”

IfsThinkingShouldSelfSpeakOriginalsTelling The TruthTrue Self

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“The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny; whose attitude is: "Tell me more. Tell me all you can. I want to understand more about everything you feel and know and all the changes inside and out of you. Let more come out." And if you have no such friend,--and you want to write,--well, then you must imagine one.”

IfsThinkingKnowsWantFeelsWritingWellsImportantInterestingAttitudeTeacherImagineLove YouGood Teacher

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“Everyone knows how people who laugh easily create us by their laughter,--making us think of funnier and funnier things.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsLaughingKnow HowLaughter

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“Know that it is good to work. Work with love, and think of liking it when you do it. It is easy and interesting. It is a privilege. There is nothing hard about it but your anxious vanity and fear of failure.”

ThinkingKnowsLoveHardPassionEasyWorkInterestingPrivilegeVanityAnxiousFear Of Failure

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“The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny.”

ThinkingImportantInterestingTeacherLove YouGood Teacher

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“If you write something and they all tell you it is bad - editors, critics, everybody - think it over and you may become convinced that they are right (though you are not to be ashamed or discouraged for a minute, but keep on writing).”

IfsThinkingWritingMayMinutesCriticsConvincedAshamedEditorsDiscouraged

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“Sometimes I think of life as a process where everybody is discouraging and taking everybody else down a peg or two.”

ThinkingTwoSometimesProcessDiscouragingPeg

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“The tragedy of bold, forthright, industrious people is that they act so continuously without much thinking, that it becomes dry and empty.”

PeopleThinkingEmptyTragedyDryIndustrious

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