Quotes of the Day

"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them."
FLANNERY O'CONNOR

"I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden."
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

"Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else."
GLORIA STEINEM

"Good things, when short, are twice as good."
GRACIÁN

"All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by ... religion, whatever else it has done, has provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need."
HARVEY COX

"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster."
ISAAC ASIMOV

"Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs."
JACK LYNCH

"Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking."
JESSAMYN WEST

"Critics are by no means the end of the law. Do not think all is over with you because you articles are rejected. It may be that the editor has his drawer full, or that he does not know enough to appreciate you, or you have not gained a reputation, or he is not in a mood to be pleased. A critic's judgment is like that of any intelligent person. If he has experience, he is capable of judging whether a book will sell. That is all."
LAVINA GOODELL

"There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself."
MARK TWAIN