August Words of Wisdom

 My life will be a continual voyage on an uncertain sea. (Nicolas de Stael)

 

At the beach - time you enjoyed wasting, is not wasted. (T.S. Eliot)

 

For me the novel is character creation. Style is nice, plot is nice, structure is OK, social significance is OK, symbolism worms its way in, timeliness is OK too, but unless the characters convince and live, the book's got no chance. (Larry McMurtry)

 

A book is a gift you can open again and again. (Garrison Keillor) 

 

Find out who you are and do it on purpose. (Dolly Parton) 

 

 

July Words of Wisdom

Every morning you have two choices: Continue to sleep with your dreams, or wake up and chase them. (Erling Haaland) 

 

Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks. (Dr. Seuss)

 

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. (Marcus Aurelius)

 

Man cannot stand a meaningless life. (Carl Jung) 

 

There is such a thing as evil, and if you do not fight it, it will eventually triumph. (Ann Widdecombe) 

 

June Words of Wisdom

To be good, and to do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words. (Abigail Adams) 

 

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. (Frederick Douglass)

 

Being hated by idiots is the price you pay for not being one of them. (Jean Cocteau) 

 

Nothing but this gaunt quiet. (H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds)

 

I like being at home. My life is very simple. I read a lot of books. I watch a lot of movies, listen to a lot of music, walk the dog. Cook with my family. I am boring. (Cillian Murphy) (Note: Sounds like a good time to me!) 

 

 

May Words of Wisdom

When I die, sprinkle my ashes over the 80's. (David Lee Roth) 

 

I want a book to take me to the place I want to be. (James McBride) 

 

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. (Rene Descartes)

 

It's amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. (Thomas Sowell) 

 

When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals. (Edward Snowden) 

 

We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them. (Lucy Maud Montgomery)

 

I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me...I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art. (Anais Nin) 

 

Even when I feel nothing, I feel it completely. (Sylvia Plath) 

 

March Words of Wisdom

The wisdom, its numbers are dwindling... 

 

But oh my, this is a noisy world. (Mr. Fred Rogers) 

 

We're developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won't be able to think. (Rod Serling)

 

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. (Aldous Huxley) 

 

Common sense is not a gift, it's a punishment because you have to deal with everyone who doesn't have it. (George Bernard Shaw) 

NOTE: I love this one because my Dad once told me some of the best advice he'd ever been given (by a teacher) was that, "You'd be surprise how uncommon common sense is." Yup.

 

Ask me to show you poetry in motion and I will show you a horse. (Unknown)  

 

Joy to the soul

The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination 

and brings eternal joy to the soul.

(Robert Wyland) 

December Words of Wisdom

I am still under the impression that there is nothing alive quite so beautiful as a horse. (John Galsworthy) 

 

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. (Oscar Wilde)

 

Don't waste time on anything that doesn't thrill you or bring you love. (Gil Gerard, RIP) 

 

I still remember the days of sitting at book signings, playing with my pen when no one would come, and still I even then thought I was living the dream, because I had a book out. (Harlan Coben) 

 

The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest imaginable thing, and you work off the resonance. (Richard Price) 

 

 

November Words of Wisdom

Traditions are answers that have been discovered to enduring questions. 

--Roger Scruton

 

Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves. 

--Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 

To the degree you approach the truth, your solitude will increase...Keep going. Don't be afraid. --Michel Houellebecq

 

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. --Albert Camus 

 

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. --William Wordsworth 

 

Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying? --Voltaire

 

How quickly we turn from damsel to dragon when we decide we've had enough of their shit. --Ann Marie Eleazer 

 

 

 

October Words of Wisdom

When the tyrant dies his rule is over. When the martyr dies, his rule has just begun. --Soren Kierkegaard

 

Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured? --Friedrich Nietzsche 

 

Find a secret place and be unreachable! And then, in the silence of solitude, the things you can not reach in the clouds will meet you there. --Mehmet Murat Ildan

 

September Words of Wisdom

Rough month.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. --Isaac Asimov

You can kill a man but you can't kill an idea. --Sophocles

When a hero stumbles, well, the cowards rejoice. Nothing feels better to a coward than to watch a brave guy fall. These cowards rejoice, for they don't know what greatness looks like. --Dave Chappelle

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad. --Aldous Huxley

 

It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. --Epictetus

 

Life did its best to break you, now didn't it? But all it did was awaken a beast it should have left sleeping. --Lisa M. Lilith 

 

Nope...not today. No one is fucking with her positive vibes. She's vibrating on a higher frequency. --Rosalyn (Her Soul Unraveled on FB) 

  

July Words of Wisdom

The monthly quotes, they are dwindling...

 

Victory is not won in miles, but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more. (Louis L'Amour)

The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage. (Thucydides)

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. (Henry David Thoreau)

June Words of Wisdom

Solitude is dangerous. It's very addictive. It becomes a habit after you realize how peaceful and calm it is. It's like you don't want to deal with people anymore because they drain your energy. (Jim Carrey)

The poison was never forced - it was offered gently, until you forgot it was poison at all. (Mark Twain)

 

And the wise Queens went on with their business, having no time for fools, fakes, and fuckery. (Ann Marie Eleazer)

 

If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders. (Walt Whitman)

 

So I therefore dedicate myself to my art, my sleep, my dreams, my labours, my sufferances, my loneliness, my unique madness, my endless absorption and hunger because I cannot dedicate myself to any fellow being. (Jack Kerouac)

 

It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written. (Robert Haas)

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. (Franz Kafka)

Feeling different, feeling alienated, feeling persecuted, feeling that the only way to deal with the world is to laugh - because if you don't laugh you're going to cry and never stop crying - that's probably what's responsible for the Jews having developed such a great sense of humor. The people who had the greatest reason to weep, learned more than anyone else how to laugh. (Mel Brooks, who celebrated his 99th birthday on Saturday. What a gift to the world he has been.)

May Words of Wisdom

The longer I live, the more convinced I am that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum. --George Bernard Shaw (I know I've posted this one before, but it bears repeating, so...)

 

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything in life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. --Steve Jobs

 

I began to understand that suffering and disappointment and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us. --Herman Hesse

 

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. --Aristotle

 

If you are ruled by mind, you are a king; if by body, a slave. --Cato the Elder 

 

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. --Adam Smith

 

 

April Words of Wisdom

What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity. --Arthur Schopenhauer

 

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. --Carl Jung

Close some doors. Not because of pride, incapacity, or arrogance, but simply because they no longer lead somewhere. --Paulo Coelho

I restore myself when I'm alone. A career is born in public, talent in private. 

--Marilyn Monroe

There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand. --Mary Shelley

March Words of Wisdom

A true passion that burns within your soul is one that can never be put out. 

--Zach Toelke

 

I do not suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it. --Edgar Allan Poe

 

Sadness is caused by intelligence. The more you understand certain things, the more you wish you didn't understand them. --Charles Bukowski

I sat with anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief. 

--C.S. Lewis

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle. --Marilyn Monroe

January Words of Wisdom

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. 

--Frederick Buechner

 

Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are. --Brene Brown

 

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be  waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. --William Jennings Bryan

 

If we encountered a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he read. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole. --David Lynch

Christmas Words of Wisdom

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it "Christmas" and went to church, the Jews called it "Hanukkah" and went to synagogue, the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy Hannukah!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!" (Dave Barry)

I wish we could put some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month. (Harlan Miller)

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. (Agnes M. Pahro)

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. (Norman Vincent Peale)

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas. Don't clean it up too quickly. (Andy Rooney)

Wouldn't life be worth the living

Wouldn't dreams be coming true

If we kept the Christmas spirit

All the whole year through?

(Unknown)

In the face of seasoned waves of evil

That we would sing that old noel

That we would hang lights on branches

That we would give gifts to others

Even if that gift is only ourselves-

This, this is a defiance seemingly impotent

Against the principalities and powers who

Daily conspire to convince us that

We are alone and love is a lie.

But do not be deceived for the demons themselves

Tremble at such quaintness.

Sisters and Brothers, Christmas on.

(John Blase)

Words of Wisdom

Slow month.

You, too, can make gut-wrenching magic out of your fiction by driving your tale to a conclusion further than you ever thought it could go. --Elizabeth Sims

You can't be precious about writing. You have to write it, get it down, and then you fix it. --Aaron Sorkin

The creative adult is the child that survived. --Ursula K. LeGuin

Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life. --Pablo Picasso 

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. 

--Albert Einstein

 

Words of Wisdom on writing villains

I never see my bad guys as simply bad. They want pretty much the same thing that you and I want: they want to be happy. (Elmore Leonard)

This reminds me of one of the pieces of advice that writers receive more than anything in crafting a compelling villain (as opposed to a moustache-twirling cartoon), and that is that the villain is the hero of his own story.

Now get back to your writing.

Words of Wisdom: Writing Edition

The regular Words of Wisdom was so paltry I'm going to combine it with August. But for the writers, here's some words to live and write by:

I believe that fiction can tell the truth in a way that sometimes an accurate reflection of the facts can't. When we write a scene in fiction, we are trying to tell the truth of that moment. --Jean Kwok

Sometimes the only way out is through, and that applies to sticky, tormented novel rewrites just as it applies to so much else in life. --Ally Wilkes

 

I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day, I find something creative to do with my life. --Miles Davis 

 

Writing is a relationship, and like any relationship, the most important thing is to show up. --Sarah Marsh

 

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. --William Wordsworth 

 

Don't write what you think people want to react. Find your voice and write about what's in your heart. --Quentin Tarantino

 

First, finish what you start. Most people don't. Also, don't compare yourself to anybody else. Everybody is unique. --Eric Roth

 

A completed screenplay is your most valuable form of currency. (finaldraftscreenwriting on IG)