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Quote by Brenda Ueland

“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.”

Quote by Brenda Ueland

Book:If You Want to Write

Work

If You Want to Write

This book offers practical advice and insights on how to develop a writing habit, overcome writer's block, and refine one's craft. more

Author

Brenda Ueland was an American journalist and writer, born on October 24, 1891, and died on March 5, 1985. She is known for her unique writing style and profound insights into writing, particularly for her book 'How to Write'. more

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“Of course, in fairness, I must remind you of this: that we writers are the most lily-livered of all craftsmen. We expect more, for the most peewee efforts, than any other people.”

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Book:If You Want to Write

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“Work freely and rollickingly as though you were talking to a friend who loves you. Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at all know-it-alls, jeerers, critics, doubters.”

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“Oddly, the most freeing thing we can ever do is to abdicate the throne of our own miniature kingdoms.”

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“...at last I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had.”

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Book:If You Want to Write

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“...writing is not a performance but a generosity.”

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“But the great artists like Michelangelo and Blake and Tolstoi--like Christ whom Blake called an artist because he had one of the most creative imaginations that ever was on earth--do not want security, egoistic or materialistic. Why, it never occurs to them. "Be not anxious for the morrow," and "which of you being anxious can add one cubit to his stature?" So they dare to be idle, i.e. not to be pressed and duty-driven all the time. They dare to love people even when they are very bad, and they dare not to try and dominate others to show them what they must do for their own good.”

“I found that many gifted people are so afraid of writing a poor story that they cannot summon the nerve to write a single sentence for months. The thing to say to such people is: "See how *bad* a story you can write. See how dull you can be. Go ahead. That would be fun and interesting. I will give you ten dollars if you can write something thoroughly dull from beginning to end!" And of course, no one can.”

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Author:Brenda Ueland

“For the record? I have never been her baby. In fact, I reject the notion of coming out of her body. I prefer to believe I was hatched, or perhaps purchased.”

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Book:Pretty in Plaid: A Life, A Witch, and a Wardrobe, or, the Wonder Years Before the Condescending,Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart-Ass Phase

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“Remember William Blake who said: "Improvement makes straight, straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius." The truth is, life itself, is always startling, strange, unexpected. But when the truth is told about it everybody knows at once that it is life itself and not made up. But in ordinary fiction, movies, etc, everything is smoothed out to seem plausible--villains made bad, heroes splendid, heroines glamorous, and so on, so that no one believes a word”

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Book:If You Want to Write

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

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Book:If You Want to Write

Source: If You Want to Write