Woody Allen
Eighty percent of life is showing up.
Mary Kay Ash
If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.
Leonard Bernstein
You can sit there, tense and worried, freezing the creative energies, or you can start writing something, perhaps something silly. It doesn’t matter what. In five or ten minutes, the imagination will heat, the tightness will fade, and a certain spirit and rhythm will take over.
Pearl S. Buck
I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.
Thomas Carlyle
Alas! The fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself.
Walt Disney
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Benjamin Disraeli
Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
Albert Einstein
How do I work? I grope.
William Faulkner
The writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed–love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.
Benjamin Franklin
A little neglect may breed mischief: for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.
Erich Fromm
The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.
Robert Frost
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say but keep on saying it.
Goethe
Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.
Samuel Goldwyn
If I look confused, it’s because I’m thinking.
Phil Jackson
Once you’ve done the mental work, there comes a point you have to throw yourself into action and put your heart on the line.
Thomas Kempis
The object of education isn’t knowledge; it’s action.
Doris Lessing
At first it’s a bit jagged, awkward, but then there’s a point where there’s a click and you suddenly become quite fluent.
Jack London
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Louis Pasteur
In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.
Winnie the Pooh
Organization is what you do before you do it, so when you do it, it’s not all messed up.
Will Rogers
Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
The Rolling Stones
Time waits for no one.
David Sedaris
You know, I just started writing and then I wrote every single day at the same time. I never have to make myself sit at the typewriter.
Edwin H. Stuart
Every time you open your mouth to talk, your mind walks out and parades up and down the words.
George Washington
Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.
Tom Wolfe
I find that what I write when I force myself is generally just as good as what I write when I’m feeling inspired.