...at last I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had.

Think of yourself as an incandescent power, illuminated and perhaps forever talked to by God and his messengers.

...the best way to know the Truth or Beauty is to try to express it. And what is the purpose of existence Here or Yonder but to discover truth and beauty and express it, i.e., share it with others?

Of course, in fairness, I must remind you of this: that we writers are the most lily-livered of all craftsmen. We expect more, for the most peewee efforts, than any other people.

By encouraging the critic in themselves (the hater) they have killed the artist (the lover).

In her 93 remarkable years, Brenda Ueland published six million words. She said she had two rules she followed absolutely: to tell the truth, and not to do anything she didn't want to do.

Everyone knows how people who laugh easily create us by their laughter,--making us think of funnier and funnier things.

I want to assure you with all earnestness, that no writing is a waste of time, – no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good. It has stretched your understanding.

At least I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had. Not to preach to them, but to give it to them if they cared to hear it.