“I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“Writing begins with an appetite to discover my self-respect. To redeem the day. So the day does not go down in debt. It begins with that kind of appetite.”
~ Leonard Cohen

“Write only what you love, and love only what you write. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.”
~ Ray Bradbury

“Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.”
~ Alan Watts

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

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
~ Jesus of Nazareth

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
~ Henry David Thoreau

There are three rules for writing a novel.
Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.
~ Robert Frost

Be regular and ordinary in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.
~ Gustave Flaubert

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson