Here is a quote from the movie Hunt for Red October. It was spoken by Commander Bart Mancuso (Scott Glenn), Commanding Officer of the USS Dallas. I thought it was funny as hell 'My morse is so rusty, I could be sending him dimensions on Playmate of the Month.'
The old MacGyver TV shows always had one good quip in the episode. In fact, a MacGyver aficionado looks for it. Last night there was a woman in high heels, a short skirt, and very lady-like, who drop kicks a bad guy into unconsciousness. McGyver: Where did you learn to do that? Her: "Sunday School" It was kind of funny, but every episode has something like that in it.
"Freedom of the press is reserved for those who own one." A.J. Liebling. "If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library" Notorious college dropout Frank Zappa. "Who you jivin' with that Cozmik Debris?" Frank Zappa Cozmik Debris.
“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” ― Oscar Wilde
You've got me curious if the typo was intentional now... Edit: I wouldn't be suprised, that book was a barrage of irony during the first half.
“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli
"Be clever. Make them do the work. Form the image in their minds. They make it, you just imply. Incept. They are drawn to the mystery, obsessed. You set it up, they put it together. Their interpretation. And there's only one, because you give them no choice. And they believe in it, because it's theirs now." - Alan Wake. (Control, AWE DLC.) Technically he's a fictional writer, but I really liked it and don't know who actually wrote it.
"Creative work is a bold attempt to be like God [...] It is like a marriage, both the opportunity for expression and the necessity for restraint." ~ Thomas Moore
Not precisely a writing quote but I guess the guy did technically 'write' music. it's a pretty dang good quote "A bus station is where a buss stops, a train station is where a train stops, at my desk I have a workstation" - William Faulkner (Composer for DBZ)
I don't know how great of a writer Lev Grossman is, apparently he was a bestseller. But he wrote this: “When you read genre fiction, you leave behind the problems of reality — but only to re-encounter those problems in transfigured form, in an unfamiliar guise, one that helps you understand them more completely, and feel them more deeply.”
I do the like, quoting Dorothy L. Sayers' fictional writer Harriet Vane, not to mention Lord Peter Wimsey when he's discussing fiction with Harriet. Sayers was insistent about not being identified with her characters, but when it comes to the one who wrote novels for a living, I think it's safe to say that Harriet speaks for Dorothy. At least, I assume so.
Andrzej Sapkowski probably isn't considered a great writer, but I think he's pretty good at least. Recent interview: He's got streaks of arrogance but I can appreciate those too:
Isabel Allende: You can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction Write with honesty and don't worry about the feelings of others, because no matter what you say, they'll hate you anyway After a few months without writing, months I've lived turned outward... I fear going deaf, not being able to hear the silence.
Can I just say, this is the opinion of one of those lucky bastards who've never actually suffered real writer's block. It's comparable to asserting that clinical depression isn't a real condition and that depressed people should just "cheer up."
Hello, colleagues I just started my development in the writing (just one book was published) Very happy to find this forum which gives me the possibility to talk with you! About Quote Thread: Chinese philosopher Confucius is: " Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life". As for me, it is more like: "Create motivation for your actions and everything you are doing will be done faster and much better".
Personally (speaking generally) I find that when we give things their own arbitrary terms and nouns they can sometimes take on a power of their own. I also haven't heard of clinical writer's block... That said, I'm sorry to hear about the funk man. It sucks. Best of luck.
Fair enough, but my perspective is sort of the opposite: Failing to acknowledge a problem doesn't make it less detrimental, whereas properly defining the problem is the first step towards solving it. If pretending a problem isn't real seems to work for you, then it's probably not your problem. Here's an example: I had serious trouble in school, especially with math, and my teachers had no idea how to handle that. They just kept following standard procedure, which obviously didn't work. On the social side I was also considered a bit of a weirdo and had trouble getting along with the other kids, with a few very fortunate exceptions. At around the age of 18 I finally got diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, and I was like: "No shit? Yeah, that actually explains a lot." Point is, I'd be mildly surprised if any of my teachers ever even considered that I might be autistic. Heck, I'm not sure I was even believed to have a learning disorder at all. That sort of thing just wasn't very well understood back then. (Things have improved considerably, with my nephew getting his diagnosis just a few years after learning to speak, I believe.) I once talked to this one girl who had a very similar experience in school, except her problem was - I kid you not - narcolepsy. She would literally fall asleep at random times and her teachers seriously just thought she was lazy. Look, I can understand how giving names to these things seems to make them appear more powerful, but that's because it forces you to take them seriously. It's like daring to look at the monster: Perhaps scarier than covering your eyes, but you're not in any less danger and far more ready to deal with it. It's just that it's a pretty well documented phenomenon that has been the subject of legit psychology research. Turns out it's apparently related to depression, go figure. (There is also an opposite condition called hypergraphia, which corresponds to mania. Yes, that's when you can't stop writing and no, it's not as awesome as it sounds.) Also, writer's block has been known to seriously threaten the careers of established professional authors to such a severe degree that blaming it on laziness seems very unlikely. And on that note, it consistently causes a great deal of frustration and anxiety in afflicted writers, which isn't quite what you'd expect from lazy people using it as an excuse to be lazy. And finally, in response to Mr Sapkowski's quote: Some of us don't have agents and publishers, Andrzej. It happens to casual hobby writers too, people who write purely out of a passion for writing, and I mean a lot. I think I've seen more complaints about writer's block on fanfiction sites than I have around here. ...Sorry if I'm ranting about an off-topic subject. It just gets to me, you know? I'm pretty sure Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett have both said something to a similar effect as well, and it's really kinda heartbreaking because I actually respect those guys a lot. It's the last thing we - the ones who look up to these people and struggle to be like them - need to hear.
Okay, you've made my day with hypergraphia! I wish I had that (kidding). I had a feeling depression would have something to do with it. Who wants to create anything, or even do anything productive in that state? If the names work for you, then by all means. If taking the state or condition seriously means doing something about it, I can respect that. Sometimes it seems to me personally that people use the name as a reason not to do anything about it. And this is just me personally, but when I hear "legit psychological studies" I instinctively roll my eyes. I careened into skepticism and started advocating normalcy (for the more popular and less symptomatically severe disorders) years ago and I'm not coming out of that. Again, just me. On the note of laziness, I think (from the disbelieving perspective) writer's block is closer to procrastination than laziness given the kind of inner turmoil it produces. As in, it's an avoidance of something rather than strictly an avoidance of work.
"God created war so that Americans would learn geography. " - Mark Twain Movie quotes "Either you thought about that, or you didn't" - from Mystery Alaska "Either what we hold to be right, and good, and true IS right and good and true for all mankind under God, or we're just another robber tribe." - King Arthur, First Knight. Two very thought provoking quotes right there. Whoever came up with them, very clever.
This passage is from Vikram Chandra’s novel "Red Earth and Pouring Rain". It’s a discussion between the monkey god Hanuman and Sanjay, a man reincarnated as a monkey who is telling stories Arabian Nights style to stay alive. Yes, that’s an awesome setup. ----- Hanuman swayed from the rafters, hanging by an arm and a tail. “So,” he said, “What’s your narrative frame?” “My what?” I said. “Your frame story?” He looked hard at me, then dropped down to the bed. “You don’t have one, do you?” “No,” I said, shame-faced. “I was just going to tell it, straight-forwardly, you see.” “Don’t you know this yet? Straightforwardness is the curse of your age, Sanjay. Be wily, be twisty, be elaborate. Forsake grim shortness and hustle. Let us luxuriate in your curlicues. Besides, you need a frame story for its peace, its quiet. You’re too involved in the tale, your audience is harried by the world. No, a calm storyteller must tell the story to an audience of educated, discriminating listeners, in a setting of sylvan beauty and silence. So it has always been, so it must be.” “If you say so,” I said. “I do, and who am I?” “Hanuman, the most cunning of the dialecticians, the perfect aesthete.” “And don’t you forget it,” Hanuman said. “I’m listening.” ----- Isn't that perfect? I always think of the line "Let us luxuriate in your curlicues" when I feel like something I've written is too bland and missing something. Then I do my best to be wily and twisty.
Oh, and three short ones that I like as well. “When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages a sick sense of failure falls on me and I know I can never do it. This happens every time. Then gradually I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all I permit myself to contemplate and I eliminate all possibility of ever finishing.” - John Steinbeck, “Travels with Charley in Search of America” "If you want to write something perfect, write a haiku. Anything longer is bound to have a few passages that don't work as well as they might." - Philip Pullman, preface to the collected "His Dark Materials" trilogy "Ignore the fucking snobs. Write that space zombie sex opera. Just give it some fucking soul." - Matt Haig (found on the internet. I've never read his work, but this quote makes me want to)
