We Begin with Success.
“Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.” – Audrey Hepburn
Protecting Your Heart from Fame – January 7, 2022
“There’s fame and there’s ultra-fame and it can destroy. You lose your perspective, you’re in the eye of a hurricane and you don’t know you’re there. And you don’t know what tomorrow is, you don’t know if what you’re recording will be a hit or not…Before we ever became famous were the best times of our lives.” – Barry Gibb, The Bee Gees
When Someone Calls Your Book “Ugly”? Merrill Streep on Never Giving Up – January 23, 2022
“This was me on my way home from an audition for King Kong where I was told I was too ‘ugly’ for the part. This was a pivotal moment for me. This one rogue opinion could derail my dreams of becoming an actress or force me to pull myself up by the boot straps and believe in myself. I took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry you think I’m too ugly for your film but you’re just one opinion in a sea of thousands and I’m off to find a kinder tide.” Meryl Streep has won 18 Academy Awards.
Destined to Greatness after 100 Years – February 5, 2020
Gerri Schappals is 102 and has an interesting way of looking at her longevity. She told her daughter Julia Schappals that she believes she was destined to do something great and she’s still trying to find out what it is and do it. – “USA Today”, Bill Doyle
Being Brave – February 14, 2022 (for Valentine’s Day)
“The bravest thing that men do is love women.” – Mort Sahl
“Men are more sentimental than women. It blurs their thinking.” – Robert Heinlein
The Cozy Bed – February 22, 2022
“No matter how big or soft or warm your bed is, you still have to get out of it.” – Grace Slick
Writer’s Block – February 27, 2022
“The best cure for writers block is lots of fresh air and exercise. I’d like a whole lot better if it were coffee or whiskey.” – Johnny Depp in “Ed Wood”
God Bless & Protect the Ukraine – Sean Penn Captures the Pathos in 2 Sentences, March 6, 2022
“Ukraine is the tip of the spear for the democratic embrace of dreams. If we allow it to fight alone, our soul as America is lost.” – Sean Penn (@SeanPenn), February 26, 2022
Never too Late – March 13, 2022
“If you want something, then go out and get it. You can’t depend on luck or the reaction of others. You can’t buy time but you can use it to enrich your life. If you’re afraid of life, it’ll eat you alive every time…. Keep fishing right back where the fish were when you started…. Do what your always wanted to do (and not what people think is good for you).” – Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever
Keep Moving – March 20, 2022
“If you’re not in motion, you’re not going anywhere.” – Harold Rosenberg, The Lonely Crowd
Actor or Writer? – March 27, 2022
“I can’t imagine being anything else but a writer at this point in my life. When I was young I imagined myself as an actor. Now I’m not so sure about that. Maybe I’m just an actor who’s a writer.” – Stephen King
Writing to Keep Your Memories Alive – April 3, 2022
“You write for your memory, and when you forget your life you’re left with a book. Writing is a lot like that. It’s a way of keeping your memories alive, and if you lose those memories, you lose that book.” – René Zellweger
Books are Like Mirrors – April 10, 2022
“Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you can’t expect a genius to look out.” – J.K Rowling
When to Speak – April 17, 2022
“Speak only when you can improve on the silence? What the hell is the point of such a conversation?” – Norman Mailer
The Greatest Lesson – April 24, 2022
“The greatest lesson you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return.” – From the “Moulin Rouge” Musical
On Happiness – May 1, 2022
“It’s pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.” – Kim Hubbard, Cartoonist
Living Forever – May 8, 2022
“We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” – Chuck Palahniuk
The Success of Your Work – May 15, 2022
“The success of your work depends on your satisfaction with what you are doing. Never mix business with pleasure. If you love both, do both.” – Virginia Woolf
Smile – May 22, 2022
“Never regret anything that made you smile.” – Mark Twain (including time spent having fun – away from your writing!)
Writers Are the Luckiest People – May 29, 2022
“Writers are the luckiest people on earth. They get to watch the world dance around them.” – John Green
James Patterson on Writing as Play – June 5, 2022
“….what matters to Patterson is the jubilation of reading and writing.” “I don’t work for a living…I play for a living. I write colloquially….It’s the way we tell stories to one another and some people don’t like it. That’s okay.”
“At 75, the literary giant is still all gas, no brakes. As a maestro of productivity, the author and co-author of more than 200 books since 1976 has no plans to stop.”
“Why would you retire from play?” he says. (https://www.tpr.org/2022-06-09/author-james-patterson-tells-his-own-story-in-new-memoir)
When Writers are Working – June 12, 2022
“Being a writer means having to say you’re working when you’d rather say you’re unemployed.” – Tobias Wolff
The Best Writing – June 18, 2022
“The best writing is rewriting.” – Tennessee Williams
Words – June 26, 2022
“I was born in a cross-fire hurricane…and I howled at my ma in the driving rain.” – Bob Dylan
Who is a Writer? – July 3, 2022
“A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” – Thomas Mann
If you Don’t Write it Down – July 10, 2022
“This much I know: I am a funny, witty, easygoing man with a good sense of humor and a nice way about me. And if I don’t write it down here to remember it — nobody will!” – Leo Tolstoy
One Person to Remember You – July 17, 2022
“As long as there is one person on earth who remembers you, it isn’t over.” – Oscar Hammerstein
Silent Conversation – July 24, 2022
“Speak only when you can improve on the silence.” – William Penn
“What the hell is the point of such a conversation?” – Norman Mailer
Words Are Like Leaves – July 31, 2022
“Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.” – Ben Johnson
“When you write you are reading and reflecting, not just recording.” – Ernest Hemingway
Being Creative – August 7, 2022
“The word ‘creative’ means I have been in human company for some time.” – Robinson Jeffers
On Tyranny of the Mind – August 14, 2022
“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” – T. Jefferson.
On Shyness & A Bit of Humor – August 21, 2022
“They have just found the gene for shyness. They would have found it earlier, but it was hiding behind two other genes.” – Stuart Peirson, senior research scientist, Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology
Hollywood Should Be Thankful to Book Publishers – September 4, 2022
“Hollywood should be thankful and grateful to book publishers….They just have to look at book sales to see what will do well on the big screen.” – Ines ter Horst, International Rights Manager at University of Texas Press
Take Everything Seriously – September 11, 2022
“Take everything seriously, but only half as much as you take yourself.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stay Drunk on Writing – September 18, 2022
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
– Ray Bradbury
If You Knew You Couldn’t Fail – September 25, 2022
“What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?”
– Robert Schuller
Writing A Story About the Failures of Love – October 2, 2022
“I was wrong to tell you that this is a story about the failures of love. No, it is about real love, true love. Imperfect, wretched, weak love. No fairy tales, no poetry. It is about the negotiations we undertake with ourselves in the name of love. Imperfect, wretched weak love. Every day we struggle to decide what to give away and what to keep, but every day we make that calculation and we live with the results. This then is the true lesson: there is nothing romantic about love. Only the most naive believe it will save them. Only the hardiest of us will survive it.” – Tara Conklin, The Last Romantics
Yet Love is All There Is – October 9, 2022
“We believe in love because we want to believe in it. Because really what else is there, amid all our glorious follies and urges and weaknesses and stumbles? The magic, the hope, the gorgeous idea of it. Because when the lights go out and we sit waking in the dark, what do our fingers seek? Who do we reach for?” – Tara Conklin, The Last Romantics
Is the Desire Still There? – October 16, 2022
Is the desire still there? Are you still driven to write? “A good question. I do ask myself, at the age of 83, what can be next, and I don’t have an answer. At the moment, I’m talking to translators and others about this book. When that’s over and I have, in theory, a clearer mind, we’ll see if anything else is happening up there. But yes, with The Silence, I had the same desire to hit the keys, to look at the words, to keep going no matter how long it takes.” – Don Delillo, award winning author of The Silence, White Noise, The Names, along with many other stories and books.
When You Want Something – October 23, 2022
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist, By the River Piedra, I Sat Down & Wept and many other award-winning books.
Robert Redford Never Won an Oscar – October 30, 2022
Let this sink in. Robert Redford is the recipient of four Oscar nominations, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, an Oscar in 2000 for directing “Ordinary People,” the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but not a single Oscar for his box-office smashing roles. “I’m not disturbed by it, I’m not upset by it because….it’s a business,” he told the Daily Mail when he was 77. Redford is now 90 – still no Oscar. And yet, he’s one of the greatest actors of all times.
Embracing Change – November 6, 2022
“Change is not merely necessary to life – it is life.” – Alvin Toffler
Your Default Settings – November 13, 2022
“There are hundreds of people in every town on Earth who live their entire lives on the default settings, never realizing they can customize everything. Don’t be one of them. Don’t settle for the default settings in life. Find your loves, your talents, your passions, and embrace them. – Marc & Angel Chernoff
Hold Fast to Dreams – November 20, 2022
“Hold fast to dreams
“For if dreams die
“Life is a broken-winged bird
“That cannot fly.”
“Hold fast to dreams
“For when dreams go
“Life is a barren field
“Frozen with snow.”
– Langston Hughes
Anxiety and Singing – December 4 – 11, 2022
“Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength. – Charles Spurgeon
“Sometimes, if you begin to sing in a halfhearted mood, you can sing yourself up the ladder. Singing will often make the heart rise.” – Charles Spurgeon
Your Untold Story! December 31, 2022
“Write what should not be forgotten.” – Isabel Allende
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou
Visit out Author/Artist Inspirational Quotes for 2021.