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— Elizabeth Law, Publisher, Egmont Books

Just write your heart out. I promise you that’s what matters. I would much, much, much rather find a great, unusual, distinctive book by a phobic writer covered in oozing sores who lives in a closet than a decent but not amazingly original book by the world’s best promoter. I could sell the former a lot better, too.

— Herman Melville, Redburn: His First Voyage

No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.  They see through us at a glance.

— D. H. Lawrence

In a cold like this, the stars snap like distant coyotes, beyond the moon.  And you’ll see the shadows of actual coyotes, going across the alfalfa field. And the pine-trees make little noises, sudden and stealthy, as if they were walking about. And the place heaves with ghosts…the ghosts there, of the Rocky Mountains.

— Julie Morgenstern, SHED

A Zen parable tells of a wanderer on a lonely road who came upon a torrential stream that had washed out the bridge…he spent several days cutting down trees and vines to build a raft.  The raft was solid and heavy and carried him safely across.  On the other side he thought, “This is a good raft—if there’s another stream ahead, I can use it.”  And so, he carried the raft for the rest of his life.

— John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman

He felt himself in suspension between the two worlds, the warm, neat civilization behind his back, the cool, dark mystery outside.  We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.

— John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman

Language is like shot silk.  So much depends on the angle at which it is held.

— William Shedd, 1820-1894

A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.

— Brian Adams

Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.

— Ursula le Guin

...the material, the story is there: it exists. You find it; you mine it out; you carry it up in buckets or in teaspoons, lay it out upon the table, push around the potsherds, ponder where they fit; fragments of gold leaf, bone, corroded flesh, the rim of a cup in buff grey or brilliant green, a knot of hair and faded threads, or on exquisite glass vessel entire . . . There is a story here, but it is up to the writer to make it whole.

— Rudyard Kipling, The Ballad of the King's Jest

Four things greater than all things are,
Women and Horses and Power and War.

— William Shakespeare, Henry V

When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. 

— Moonrat, anonymous NY editor

We all have our foibles, and we are all part of a creative industry, which of course means you’re going to get rather a lot of personality from anyone you work with…

— Seen on bumper sticker

Wag more, bark less.