Previous "Quotes of the Week" ~ 2004

These quotes appeared on the welcome page of The Write Place in 2004. Click your "back" button to return to your previous page. Enjoy!

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12/22/04:

"I will honor Christmas in my heart
and try to keep it all the year."
~ Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol - 1843)

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11/23/04:

In honor of my dog, JEFFIE
(June 3, 1988 - November 24, 2003)

"Outside of a dog, a book is probably
man's best friend, and inside of a dog,
it's too dark to read."
~ Groucho Marx

"He is your friend, your partner,
your defender, your dog.
You are his life, his love, his leader.
He will be yours, faithful and true,
to the last beat of his heart.
You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."
~ Unknown

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole."
~ Roger Caras

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11/8/04:

"Art is not meant to be created
in stolen moments only."

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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10/16/04:

"Drama is life with the
dull bits cut out."

~ Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)

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10/8/04:

"I was fretting too much over that opening sentence.
I worked on it scrupulously,
thinking that if I could only get the first sentence right,
the rest of the book would come easy.
That was a big mistake.
Weeks went by with my staring at blank paper and getting nowhere.
One day I decided to just start writing in the style of
the Dick and Jane first grade readers.
Simple little words,
without bothering about style or polish -
just to get the story on paper. I started writing,
'There is a little town on a hill called Santa Vittoria.
It is in Italy. The people in the town grow grapes
and make wine. One day, not too long ago...' and so on.
It worked fine. Soon I was writing like mad all day long.
The pages began to pile up and I felt better."

~ Robert Crichton, American editor and writer (1925 - 1993)

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9/30/04:

"As rain beat against the windows,
a feeling of peace came over me as I wrote
far beyond the required length of the essay.
I had discovered the pleasure of writing,
and to this day, whenever it rains,
I feel the urge to write.
Most of my books are written in winter."

~ Beverly Cleary (1916 - )

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9/23/04:

"It is not true that we have only one life to live;
if we can read, we can live as many more lives and
as many kinds of lives as we wish."

~ Senator S.I. Hayakawa (1906-1992)

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8/25/04:

"You know you are a writer because
you write even when it's not an assignment for school,
because you read insatiably and aspire to write books
as amazing as the ones that make you
do that reading/walking shuffle to dinner,
because hours slip by unnoticed when you engage your imagination.
You write because there is nothing in the world like the feeling you get
when you finally finish that poem or short story.
You write because it's fun.
You write because you have to."

~ Trish Walsh, program director of the
University of Iowa's famous Iowa Writers' Workshop

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8/15/04:

"So this is always the key:
you have to write the book you love,
the book that's alive in your heart.
That's the one you have to write."

~ Lurleen McDaniel

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8/10/04:

The Agony of Square One: Beginnings

"There is no getting around it,
although every writer sometimes wishes there were.
Every story must have a beginning. A lead.
Incubating a lead is a cause of great agony.
Why is no mystery. Based on the lead,
a reader makes a critical decision:
'Shall I go on?'"

~ Jack Cappon of The Associated Press

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8/2/04:

"I think writer's block is simply the dread that you are going to write something horrible.
But as a writer, I believe that if you sit down at the keys long enough,
sooner or later something will come out."

~ Roy Blount, Jr. (author of I Am Puppy, Hear Me Yap)

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July was a research & vacation month.

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6/27/04:

"You can take for granted that people know more or less
what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like.
Tell them what makes this one different."

~ Neil Gaiman

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6/22/04:

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Live the life you have imagined."

~ Henry David Thoreau

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6/11/04:

"Whatever else history may say about me
when I'm gone, I hope it will record
that I appealed to your best hopes,
not your worst fears;
to your confidence rather than your doubts.
My dream is that you will travel the road ahead
with liberty's lamp guiding your steps
and opportunity's arm steadying your way."

~ Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004)

"Ronald Reagan won America's respect with his greatness, and won its love with his goodness. He had the confidence that comes with conviction, the strength that comes with character, the grace that comes with humility, and the humor that comes with wisdom."

~ President George W. Bush

Click here for more quotes by Ronald Reagan

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4/17/04:

"Painting is silent poetry,
and poetry is a speaking picture."

~ Simonides

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3/28/04:

"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought
and the thought has found words."

~ Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

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1/26/04:

"Keep away from men who try to belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that, but the really great
make you feel that you too can become great."

~ Mark Twain (1835-1910)

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1/18/04:

"The future belongs to those
who prepare for it."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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1/14/04:

"A room without books
is like a body without a soul."

~ Marcus T. Cicero

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1/02/04:

"So now it is time for the final chapter,
seemingly one destined from the beginning.
A fadeout becomes the most difficult of all,
for though the story is finished,
the reader must be led to believe
that the very best lies directly ahead.
New worlds to conquer! New horizons to explore!"

~ Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson (1905-2002)
original ghostwriter of the Nancy Drew® series,
as she penned in The Ghost of Ladora.

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"Perseverance is a great element of success.
If you only knock long enough
and loud enough at the gate,
you are sure to wake up somebody."

-- H. W. Longfellow (1807 - 1882)