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Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley Quotes

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Famous Walter Mosley Quotes

“Many writers-in-waiting spend a lot of time avoiding the work at hand. The most common way to avoid writing is by procrastination. This is the writer's greatest enemy. There is little to say about it except that once you decide to write every day, you must make yourself sit at the desk or table for the required period whether or not you are putting down words. Make yourself take the time even if the hours seem fruitless. Ideally, after a few days or weeks of being chained to the desk, you will submit to the story that must be told.”

IfsWayWritingLittlesStoriesHandsSeemsWaitingHoursCommonEnemyWeekPeriodsTablesSubmitProcrastinationDesksAvoidingChained
Book:This Year You Write Your Novel
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“These short stories are vast structures existing mostly in the subconscious of our cultural history. They will live with the reader long after the words have been translated into ideas and dreams. That's because a good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs. A good short story asks a question that can't be answered in simple terms. And even if we come up with some understanding, years later, while glancing out of a window, the story still has the potential to return, to alter right there in our mind and change everything.”

IfsYearsMindLongHas BeensStillsIdeasStoriesDreamAsksBeliefNationsUnderstandingTermSimpleReturnReaderCrossesWindowPrejudiceStructureCome UpBordersShort StorySubconsciousIdeas And Dreams
Book:The Best American Short Stories 2003
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“The process of writing a novel is like taking a journey by boat. You have to continually set yourself on course. If you get distracted or allow yourself to drift, you will never make it to the destination. It's not like highly defined train tracks or a highway; this is a path that you are creating discovering. The journey is your narrative. Keep to it and there will be a tale told.”

IfsWritingCoursesProcessNovelPathJourneyCreatingTrainTrackTalesBoatDefinedNarrativeDestinationDiscoveringHighwaysDistractedTrain Tracks
Book:This Year You Write Your Novel
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“That’s how Ptolemy imagined the disposition of his memories, his thoughts: they were still his, still in the range of his thinking, but they were, many and most of them, locked on the other side a closed door that he’s lost the key for. So his memory became like secrets held away from his own mind. But these secrets were noisy things; they babbled and muttered behind the door, and so if he listened closely he might catch a snatch of something he once knew well.”

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Author:Walter Mosley
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“Love, as the poet says, is like the spring. It grows on you and seduces you slowly and gently, but it holds tight like the roots of a tree. You don't know until you're ready to go that you can't move, that you would have to mutilate yourself in order to be free. That's the feeling. It doesn't last, at least it doesn't have to. But it holds on like a steel claw in your chest. Even if the tree dies, the roots cling to you. I've seen men and women give up everything for love that once was.”

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Author:Walter Mosley
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“I would have been completely brainwashed by this lopsided and racist view of the world if it weren't for my father. He was a deep thinker and an irrepressible problem solver. He was a Black Socrates, asking why and then spoiling ready-made replies.”

IfsWorldHas BeensMadeProblemFatherBlackViewsReadyAskingRacistThinkerBrainwashedAsking WhyProblem SolversIrrepressibleDeep Thinker
Book:What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace
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“... you should wait until the book is finished before making a judgment on its content. By the time you have gone through twenty drafts, the characters may have developed lives of their own, completely separate from the people you based them on in the beginning. And even if someone, at some time, gets upset with your words - so what? Live your life, sing your song. Anyone who loves you will want you to have that.”

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Author:Walter Mosley
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