“The single most important technique for making progress is to write ten words. Doesn't matter if you're badly stuck, or your day is completely jam-packed, or you're away from your computer - carry a small paper notebook and write a sentence of description while you're waiting on line at a coffee shop. I think of this as baiting a hook. Even if you have a few days in a row where nothing comes except those ten words, I find that as long as you have to think about the novel enough to write ten words, the chances are that more will come.” IfsThinkingWritingLongImportantMatterEnoughWaitingLinesChanceNovelProgressTenPaperComputerSentencesTechniqueCoffeeStuckShopsDescriptionHookJamChances AreNotebookCoffee Shop Author:Naomi Novik
“A lot of people complain about yesterday. We have no power to change yesterday. But this very day, 30 years later, is what we can control and decide. Change yourself, take baby steps, and stay determined for ten years. I thank the times of change and everyone’s complaints. Because when everyone is complaining, that is your chance, an opportunity. It’s only in times of change that someone can be clear of what he has and wants, and what he needs to give up.” PeopleWantNeedsGivingYearsOpportunityChanceStepsClearBabyTenGiving UpDeterminedComplainingYesterdayComplaintsChange YourselfPower To ChangeBaby Steps Author:Jack Ma
“A child born today in the United Kingdom stands a ten times greater chance of being admitted to a mental hospital than to a university ... This can be taken as an indication that we are driving our children mad more effectively than we are genuinely educating them. Perhaps it is our way of educating them that is driving them mad.” WayChildrenTodayBornChanceUnitedTakenGreaterTenOur ChildrenMadUniversityDrivingKingdomsHospitalsIndicationUnited Kingdom Author:R. D. Laing
“I start a book and I want to make it perfect, want it to turn every color, want it to be the world. Ten pages in, I've already blown it, limited it, made it less, marred it. That's very discouraging. I hate the book at that point. After a while I arrive at an accommodation: Well, it's not the ideal, it's not the perfect object I wanted to make, but maybeif I go ahead and finish it anywayI can get it right next time. Maybe I can have another chance.” IfsWorldWantWellsMadeI CanBookWantedHateTurnsNextChancePerfectObjectsColorTenPagesIdealsI HateMade ItNext TimeDiscouragingAnother ChanceAccommodations Author:Joan Didion
“So, eventually, he made one final arrangement with himself, which he has religiously held to ever since, and that was to count each fish that he caught as ten, and to assume ten to begin with. For example, if he did not catch any fish at all, then he said he had caught ten fish - you could never catch less than ten fish by his system; that was the foundation of it. Then, if by any chance he really did catch one fish, he called it twenty, while two fish would count thirty, three forty, and so on.” IfsMadeSaidTwoThreeChanceSeaExampleTenRiversTwentiesFoundationAssumingFinalsCaughtFishesBoatThirtyLakesFishingFortyArrangements Book:Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog Source: Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog
“In the same way the eminence attaching to the mere possession of great wealth disappoints us nine times out of ten, especially if the wealth has been accumulated rapidly. For great wealth is accumulated rapidly by cunning or chance, or a mixture of the two. Cunning has nothing to do with high qualities; it is rather a presumption against them; while chance has nothing to do with them either. Therefore it is that men are always complaining after meeting So-and-so, that he seemed to be astonishingly stupid, though he made a million in ten years and started as a pauper.” IfsMenWayYearsHas BeensMadeTwoPoliticsWealthChanceQualityMillionsEconomyStupidTenMeetingsMerePossessionComplainingNineLiberalismCunningMixturesDisappointPresumptionHigh QualityEminenceAlways Complaining Author:Hilaire Belloc
“No matter how successful, beloved, influential her work was, when a woman author dies, nine times out of ten, she gets dropped from the lists, the courses, the anthologies, while the men get kept. ... If she had the nerve to have children, her chances of getting dropped are higher still. ... So if you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that.” IfsMenWantWritingChildrenStillsMatterKidsDiesCoursesChanceSuccessfulTakenHe ManHigherTenSuicideListsNineCommitBelovedNervesInfluentialAnthology Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
“I'm getting very sorry for the Devil and his disciples such as the good Le Chiffre. The devil has a rotten time and I always like to be on the side of the underdog. We don't give the poor chap a chance...the Devil had no prophets to write his Ten Commandments and no team of authors to write his biography.” GivingWritingSidesChancePoorTeamTenDevilSorryProphetCommandmentsDiscipleBiographiesRottenUnderdogTen CommandmentsChaps Author:Ian Fleming
“The Cloud Roads has wildly original worldbuilding, diverse and engaging characters, and a thrilling adventure plot. It's that rarest of fantasies: fresh and surprising, with a story that doesn't go where ten thousand others have gone before. I can't wait for my next chance to visit the Three Worlds!” WorldI CanCharacterStoriesThreeNextWaitingChanceFantasyGoneAdventureThousandTenOriginalsCloudsPlotSurprisingDiverseEngagingThrilling Author:N.K. Jemisin
“I would love to be better at cooking but I hate cleaning up afterwards. I love the process of putting everything together and the chance of getting it right or wrong but it takes ten minutes to eat it and then ages to clean.” AgeTogetherHateProcessChanceMinutesTenI HateCookingCleanCleaningCleaning Up Author:Mark Webber
“Splitting the atom is like trying to shoot a gnat in the Albert Hall at night and using ten million rounds of ammunition on the off chance of getting it. That should convince you that the atom will always be a sink of energy and never a reservoir of energy.” ShouldTryingNightEnergyChanceMillionsTenRoundsConvinceHallsAtomsReservoirsSplittingAmmunitionGnatsSplitting The Atom Author:Ernest Rutherford