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.