Quotes from Ralph Keyes

Clever lines routinely travel from obscure mouths to prominent ones.

Fear is felt by writers at every level. Anxiety accompanies the first word they put on paper and the last.

wrote Lawrence Block. "Someone once told me that fear and courage are like lightning and thunder; they both start out at the same time, but the fear travels faster and arrives sooner. If we just wait a moment, the requisite courage will be along shortly." (quoted from Write for Your Live by Lawrence Block)

Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration.

Willa Cather said that she write best when she stopped trying to write and began simply to remember.

fear and courage are like lightning and thunder; they both sart out at the same time, but the fear travels faster and arrives sooner. If we just wait a moment, the requisite courage will be along shortly.

One thing that separates would-be writers from working writers is that the latter know their work will never match their dreams.

One of the most fundamental of human fears is that our existence will go unnoticed.

Henrik Ibsen hung a picture of August Strindberg over his desk. "He is my mortal enemy and shall hang there and watch while I write!" explained Ibsen.

I prefer a man who is unskillful, who is an awkward writer, but who has something to say, who is dealing himself one time on every page.

I put on several different outfits. The advantage of not knowing who you are is you can attempt to be all things to all men … or women. My mother saw me always glancing in every mirror, every window; in the gleaming blades of knives. She said, "Jill is vain." She did not know I was looking to see who would be there this time.

Fear flushes clogged pores of perception.

Find tricks to keep yourself going," William Least Heat Moon once advised a group of aspiring writers. "Anything you can do to trick yourself out of panicking, do it.

Success as a writer is within the grasp of whoever can tell a story on paper that people want to hear, and is willing to persist, to put up with boredom, frustration, and anxiety.

writing about something was not the moral equivalent of doing it

Writing is merely public speaking on paper, but to a much larger audience.

Tools are totems, an important weapon in the fight against fear.

Authors always feel in danger of being abandoned by loved ones. This is a potent fear. Yet it's as inevitable as writer's cramp when we presume to write words for others to read.

Christopher Isherwood tried to trick a good topic into rising from his unconscious by irritating it, "deliberately writing nonsense until it intervenes, as it were, saying, 'All right, you idiot, let me fix this.

Those who generate fog are Wizards of Oz hoping desperately that nobody pulls the curtain to reveal a trembling little writer behind it. This seldom happens. Readers who dare to point out that incomprehensible writing can't be comprehended risk being told that the problem is theirs.

The most understandable trap is to wait for fear to subside before starting one's journey. It doesn't, won't, and shouldn't. Too much good writing comes from writers on the edge. Trying to defeat or portage around normal writing anxieties merely postpones the day when we confront our fears directly and find the courage to write.

Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration.

I think that simply nudging yourself into unfamiliar settings - physical or emotional - can produce surprising results on the writing front.