Brenda Ueland Quotes

Quotes about:

• This is what I learned: that everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.

  Brenda Ueland

  Important, Originals

  63 Copy quote

• Why should we all use our creative power....? Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money.

  Brenda Ueland

  Art, Fighting, Compassion

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.138, Simon and Schuster

  49 Copy quote

• Now some people when they sit down to write and nothing special comes, no good ideas, are so frightened that they drink a lot of strong coffee to hurry them up, or smoke packages of cigarettes, or take drugs or get drunk. They do not know that ideas come slowly, and that the more clear, tranquil and unstimulated you are, the slower the ideas come, but the better they are.

  Brenda Ueland

  Strong, Coffee, Writing

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

• I learned...that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.

  Brenda Ueland

  Inspiration, Creativity, Creating

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

  28 Copy quote

• the death of any loved parent is an incalculable lasting blow. Because no one ever loves you again like that.

  Brenda Ueland

  Love You, Blow, Parent

  Brenda Ueland (1980). “Me”, Ayer Company Pub

  18 Copy quote

• When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.

  Brenda Ueland

  Ideas, Listening, Grows

  Brenda Ueland (1993). “Strength to Your Sword Arm: Selected Writings”, Holy Cow Press

  21 Copy quote

• You can write anything you want to,--a six-act blank verse, symbolic tragedy or a vulgar short, short story. Just so that you write it with honesty and gusto, and do not try to make somebody believe that you are smarter than you are. What's the use? You can never be smarter than you are.

  Brenda Ueland

  Honesty, Believe, Writing

  6 Copy quote

• Your motto: Be Bold, Be Free, Be Truthful.

  Brenda Ueland

  Truthful, Motto, Being Truthful

  Brenda Ueland (1987). “If You Want to Write”

  9 Copy quote

• I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.

  Brenda Ueland

  Children, Writing, Creativity

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

  21 Copy quote

• Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be.

  Brenda Ueland

  Thinking, Self, Speak

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• it is when you are really living in the present-working, thinking, lost, absorbed in something you care about very much, that you are living spiritually.

  Brenda Ueland

  Thinking, Live In The Moment, Care

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.44, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

• I want to write about the great and powerful thing that listening is. And how we forget it. And how we don't listen to our children, or those we love. And least of all - which is so important, too - to those we do not love. But we should. Because listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force...When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.

  Brenda Ueland

  Children, Powerful, Writing

  7 Copy quote

• If you write, good ideas must come welling up into you so that you have something to write. If good ideas do not come at once, or for a long time, do not be troubled at all. Wait for them. Put down little ideas no matter how insignificant they are. But do not feel, any more, guilty about idleness and solitude.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Ideas, Long

  6 Copy quote

• You know, I have come to think listening is love, that's what it really is.

  Brenda Ueland

  Thinking, Listening, Knows

  Brenda Ueland (1993). “Strength to Your Sword Arm: Selected Writings”, Holy Cow Press

  10 Copy quote

• Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express.

  Brenda Ueland

  Talent, Humans

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• The imagination needs moodling,--long, inefficient happy idling, dawdling and puttering.

  Brenda Ueland

  Happiness, Creativity, Long

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.23, Simon and Schuster

  12 Copy quote

• Write a true, careless, slovenly impulsive, honest diary every day of your life.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Diaries, Honest

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.104, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• the only way to become a better writer is to become a better person.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Way, Better Person

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.99, Simon and Schuster

  12 Copy quote

• We should all know this: that listening is not talking; [it] is the gifted and great role and the imaginative role. And the true listener is much more beloved, magnetic than the talker, and he is more effective, and learns more and does more good. And so try listening. Listen to your wife, your husband, your father, your mother, your children, your friends; to those who love you and those who don't, to those who bore you, to your enemies. It will work a small miracle. And perhaps a great one.

  Brenda Ueland

  Mother, Children, Husband

  25 Copy quote

• Creative power flourishes only when I am living in the present.

  Brenda Ueland

  Creative, Live In The Present, Creative Power

  10 Copy quote

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

  Brenda Ueland

  Power, Thinking, Forever

  "If You Want to Write".

  6 Copy quote

• Work freely and rollickingly as though you were talking to a friend who loves you. Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at all know-it-alls, jeerers, critics, doubters.

  Brenda Ueland

  Love You, Talking, Three

  29 Copy quote

• I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day.

  Brenda Ueland

  Creativity, Long, Six

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.31, Simon and Schuster

  31 Copy quote

• Now before going to a party, I just tell myself to listen with affection to anyone who talks to me... to try to know them without my mind pressing against theirs, or arguing or changing the subject. No. My attitude is: "Tell me more. This person is showing me his soul. It is a little dry and meager and full of grinding talk just now, but presently he will begin to think, not just automatically to talk. He will show his true self. Then he will be wonderfully alive."

  Brenda Ueland

  Attitude, Party, Thinking

  Brenda Ueland (1993). “Strength to Your Sword Arm: Selected Writings”, Holy Cow Press

  29 Copy quote

• The only way to love a person is...by listening to them and seeing and believing in the god, in the poet, in them. For by doing this, you keep the god and the poet alive and make it flourish.

  Brenda Ueland

  Believe, Listening, Alive

  10 Copy quote

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