“No two persons ever read the same book.”–Edmund Wilson
(Still a favorite quote of mine.)
“No two persons ever read the same book.”–Edmund Wilson
(Still a favorite quote of mine.)
“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.”–Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin)Shelley
“A good book is an event in my life.”-Stendhal, The Red and the Black
“There are thirty-two ways to write a story, and I’ve used every one, but there is only one plot–things are not as they seem.”–Jim Thompson
Jim Thompson’s philosophy about plot aligns closely with mine. What is your attitude towards the subject? Please share in the comments!
“Creativity is that marvelous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition.”–Max Ernst
“The first draft is just telling yourself the story.”—Terry Pratchett
“Never keep a poem waiting; it might be a really good one, and if you don’t get it down, it’s lost.”–Ruth Stone
In writing and in life…

Courtesy Grammarly
“For two extraordinary years, I have been working on it–learning to write– but mostly learning how to tell the truth. At first it is quite impossible. You make yourself better than anybody, and when you finally come to see you are “like” everybody– that is the bitterest blow of all to the ego. But in the end it is only the truth, no matter how ugly or shameful, that is right, that fits together, that makes real people, and strangely enough– beauty…”–Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks, circa 1929
The extraordinarily gifted and intelligent Louise Brooks– dancer, actor, and writer–was born on 14 November 1906. May she never be forgotten.
Robert Louis Stevenson was born on this day in 1850.

Robert Louis Stevenson by Count Girolamo Nerli (1892). Scottish National Gallery.
“I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.”–Robert Louis Stevenson