35 Quotes by Pat Schneider

Writing is an animal that lives in the soul. It must not be whipped into doing tricks. It is not a circus animal. It can be fierce, but it is not malevolent. It can be playful, but it is not without wisdom. Above all, it is wild. A wild animal has to sleep sometimes. This is a time of deep sleep for my writing.

I am like you, curious and small. Like you, I pause alertly and open my senses to try to read the air, the clouds, the sun’s slant, the little movements of the animals, all in the hope I will learn the secret of whether I am loved.”5.

Maybe the bottom of my own night is a darkness I cannot descend into without “the light that is within me” becoming dark.

The more we open ourselves to love, the larger our capacity for love becomes.

Darkness and light are inextricably bound together.

If I am an artist, I have a vocation. As one drawn to a lover or called to a religious mission, I go to my work – my writing – because it is essential to my happiness.

Putting words onto paper – when it is done as an honest act of search or connection, rather than as an act of manipulation, performance, self-aggrandizement or self-protection – is a holy act.

In writing, we see, sometimes with fear and trembling, who we have been, who we really are, and we glimpse now and then who we might become.