I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another. —Brenda Ueland

Reality is the only word in the English language that should always be used in quotes. —Unknown

I perceived that to express those impressions, to write that essential book, which is the only true one, a great writer does not, in the current meaning of the word, invent it, but, since it exists already in each one of us, interprets it. The duty and the task of a writer are those of an interpreter. —Marcel Proust

Make them laugh, make them cry, and back to laughter. What do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. . . . I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that. —Mary Pickford

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can. —Ernest Hemingway

Many men build as cathedrals were built, the part nearest the ground finished; but that part which soars toward heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever incomplete. —Henry Ward Beecher

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. —Douglas H. Everett

A "Two-fer"

I believe that God made me for a purpose... for China. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.... To win is to honor Him. —Eric Liddell

I believe that God made me for a purpose.... But He also made me funny, and when I create laughter, I feel His pleasure.... To make people laugh is to honor Him. —Me

Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it. —Greg Anderson

Rudeness is not hypocritical the way politeness often is. —Charlotte Bronte (in Jane Eyre)