Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that supposed to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing. —Toni Morrison More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
My mother was my first jealous lover. —Barbara Grizzuti Harrison More about this quote Tags: love mother jealousy Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
She had risen and was walking about the room, her fat, worn face sharpening with a sort of animal alertness into power and protection. The claws that hide in every maternal creature slipped out of the fur of good manners. —Margaret Deland More about this quote Tags: power manners walking protection motherhood alertness Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
In the beginning there was my mother. A shape. A shape and a force, standing in the light. You could see her energy; it was visible in the air. Against any background she stood out. —Marilyn Krysl More about this quote Tags: energy mother Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
A couple of months ago I had a dream, which I remember with the utmost clarity. (I don't usually remember my dreams.) I dreamed I had died and gone to Heaven. I looked about and knew where I was — green fields, fleecy clouds, perfumed air, and the distant, ravishing sound of the heavenly choir. And there was the recording angel smiling broadly at me in greeting. I said in wonder, "Is this Heaven?" The recording angel said, "It is." I said (and on waking and remembering, I was proud of my integrity), "But there must be a mistake. I don't belong here. I'm an atheist." "No mistake," said the recording angel. "But as an atheist how can I qualify?" The recording angel said sternly, "We decide who qualifies. Not you." "I see," I said. I looked about, pondered for a moment, then turned to the recording angel and asked, "Is there a typewriter here that I can use?" The significance of the dream was clear to me. I felt Heaven to be the act of writing, and I have been in Heaven for over half a century, and I have always known this. —Isaac Asimov More about this quote Tags: integrity writing dreams atheism heaven Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The most solid advice . . . for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough. —William Saroyan More about this quote Tags: advice laughter living writing death taste food anger sleep Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
All writing, even the clumsy kind, exposes in its loops and slants a yearning deeper than an intention, the soul of the writer flopping on the clothes-peg of his exclamation mark. —Paul Theroux More about this quote Tags: writing soul yearning intention Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
We see achievement as purposeful and monolithic, like the sculpting of a massive tree trunk that has first to be brought from the forest and then shaped by long labor to assert the artist's vision, rather than something crafted from odds and ends, like a patchwork quilt, and lovingly used to warm different nights and bodies. —Mary Catherine Bateson More about this quote Tags: purpose vision art work achievement Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things. —Pablo Picasso More about this quote Tags: God art animals Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
He who has made a thousand things and he who has made none, both feel the same desire: to make something. —Antonio Porchia More about this quote Tags: desire making Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I am dissatisfied with everything I have ever written and regard it all only as a preparation for that one work which probably I don't have it in me to write but which I hope I can go on trying for. —Ruth Prawer Jhabvala More about this quote Tags: hope writing trying Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time. —Kurt Vonnegut More about this quote Tags: intelligence writing refinement Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
He asked, "What makes a man a writer?" "Well," I said, "it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge. —Charles Bukowski More about this quote Tags: writing necessity suicide Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The good thing about writing fiction is that you can get back at people. I've gotten back at lawyers, prosecutors, judges, law professors, and politicians. I just line 'em up and shoot 'em. —John Grisham More about this quote Tags: writing fiction politicians lawyers Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Writing is so difficult that I often feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter. —Jessamyn West More about this quote Tags: writing escape art punishment Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email