quotes – Page 10 – Question of Smoke

She drank a glass of wine and looked for something new to ruin with her lack of talent.

Chuck Palahniuk, Diary (via fables-of-the-reconstruction)

I want to inspire people. I want someone to look at me and say, ‘Because of you I didn’t give up.’

Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

John Steinbeck (via astrangerhere)

gupmusic:

This reminds me of my mother. Except she’s not German and the only foreign word she knows means cheese in Dutch.

gupmusic:

Life gets SOOO much better after you leave those bland brick walls. You’re exposed to so much opportunity and far less nit picky scrutiny over how you are. You choose who you see and who you don’t and you really find what makes you happy.

Don’t let high school get you down for the rest of your life. It’s the hardest stepping stone on the path to growing up for most – but it’s definitely not the best!

The real best part about growing up is realizing you really don’t need to grow up, just grow wise 🙂

Before I am your daughter,
your sister,
your aunt, niece, or cousin,
I am my own person,
and I will not set fire to myself
to keep you warm.

1/? Things To Remember (via rauchwolken)

You must go on adventures to find out where you belong.

currently (via awelltraveledwoman)

We look to books to take us to new places, to meet new people, to have new experiences. Yes. But we also look to books to find ourselves. To see yourself, your life experience, a face or name like yours in a book means something. I’m an adult who didn’t experience this as a child, and I still get goosebumps when I see a character that resembles me in a book. It legitimizes your place wherever you are. If you don’t understand this, if you can’t empathize with someone’s need for this sense of recognition, it’s because you have the privilege to not understand or care.

Celia C. Perez, librarian, asking "Why are they always white children?“ at her All Brown All Around blog (via diversityinya)

What keeps me going? Why write when there are so many other things I could be doing with my one and only life? Why not become a savior, a saint, a martyr? Why not make a ton of money and surround myself with luxury? Why not raise a litter of children and disseminate my DNA far and wide? Why not watch TV and drink beer all day? Why not stop breathing and maybe find out that I’m wrong about what happens next? … because every new book is the book that will float us above and away from (choose three) irrelevance, poverty, mediocrity, madness, obscurity, obloquy, ourselves.

Pete Hautman on the Book that Will Save Us (Writing for the Long Haul series)

Whoa, I needed to see this today. See, sometimes I feel like as a YA writer I’m supposed to talk about books in the context of readers needing them. I’m supposed to write Because [Something] Is Important. There’s a whole “books save lives” thing thing out there. Which may be true. But for me, when it comes to writing, I think about the Flannery O’Connor quote I put in the front of How to Save a Life – “The life you save may be your own." Truth is, writing is what I happen to need to do with my life, and the alternatives are terrifying.

(Also I learned a new word from Hautman in this piece!)

There are trees older than you think Earth is.

Bill Nye to creationist Ken Ham (via violinhickey)