Quotes About Process

I paint from the top down. First the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the houses, then the cattle, and then the people.

Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. And however undramatic the pursuit of peace, the pursuit must go on.

Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped.

There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, and all things in succession. That which grows slowly endures.

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

In the main it is not by introspection but by reflecting on our living in common with others that we come to know ourselves. What is revealed? It is an original creation. Freely the subject makes himself what he is, never in this life is the making finished, always it is in process, always it is a precarious achievement that can slip and fall and shatter.

The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness.

I'm a salami writer. I try to write good salami, but salami is salami.

Remember, the bread you meet each day is still rising. Don't scare the dough.

The waters wear the stones.

The process of writing a book is infinitely more important than the book that is completed as a result of the writing, let alone the success or failure that book may have after it is written . . . the book is merely a symbol of the writing. In writing the book, I am living. I am growing. I am tapping myself. I am changing. The process is the product.

The waste basket is a writer's best friend.

You have to throw yourself away when you write.

As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from writing it till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear, pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall.

Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at the blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.

Imperfection is an end. Perfection is only an aim.

From speaking with my mother I learned that forgiveness is a process that begins with the choice to end your own suffering.

We've got to learn how to trust ourselves and dare to acknowledge what we really feel. We've got to learn how to trust that God is in the mix and that we are a part of God. We've got to learn how to trust each other to do the right thing because it's the right thing. We've got to learn how to trust in the process of life and surrender our inflated human egos. Because

Creepy. If I ever did that, popped a kid out—which I think is probably as pleasant a process as having your eyeballs pierced by burning, poisonous sticks, I'd say, 'Whoopee, let's do this again?' Have you recently suffered head trauma?" "Not to my knowledge." "Could be coming. Any second.

Then again, he supposed the healing process, in contrast to trauma, was gentle and slow... The soft closing of a door, rather than a slam.- John

He firmly believed that people were like pieces of meat; the longer they stewed, the softer they became. The tastier, too.

It is not in what you succeed in doing that you get your joy, but in the doing of it. 

I read bits and pieces of 'Twilight' as we were making it.

Not all ideas are like a twinkling star in the sky, and you get inspired to make a record the next day.