Here are a few of my favorite quotations from books about writing, lines I enjoy re-reading because they inspire me to keep writing:
“Art, in essence, celebrates life and gives us our measure.†– Bernard Malamud (First Person Singular: Writers On Their Craft; compiled by Joyce Carol Oates)
“…the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others…†– Brenda Ueland (If You Want To Write)
“Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.†– Rita Mae Brown (Starting from Scratch)
“An essay about those who shun the popular and profitable for that of seemingly small importance is an essay I want to write; it is an essay I want to read.†– Lisa Knopp (“Excavations†in The Essayist At Work, edited by Lee Gutkind)
Those are my goals as a writer: to celebrate life, to illuminate the lives and loves of people around me, to do so with skill as well as passion while creating works that are entertaining.