Inspiring Authors

Top Ten Quotes from Recognized Experts

1.   A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God. – Sidney Sheldon

2.  If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write. Somerset Maugham

3. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. – Herman Melville

4. Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil—but there is no way around them. – Isaac Asimov

5. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer. – Ray Bradbury

6. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer. – Barbara Kingsolver

7. I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged. Erica Jong

8. Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good. – William Faulkner

9. You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money’s in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed. Larry Niven

10. No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing. E. B. White