Brenda Ueland Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• 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

• 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

• ...writing is not a performance but a generosity.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Generosity, Performances

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

• Even if I knew for certain that I would never have anything published again, and would never make another cent from it, I would still keep on writing.

  Brenda Ueland

  Art, Writing, Creativity

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

• So remember these two things: you are talented and you are original. Be sure of that. I say this because self-trust is one of the very most important things in writing.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Self, Two

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

• 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.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Imagination, Creative

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

• If you are never satisfied with what you write, that is a good sign. It means that your vision can see so far that it's hard to come up to it. Again I say - the only unfortunate people are the glib ones, immediately satisfied with their work. To them, the ocean is only knee-deep.

  Brenda Ueland

  Ocean, Writing, Mean

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

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, People, Feelings

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

• If you write something and they all tell you it is bad - editors, critics, everybody - think it over and you may become convinced that they are right (though you are not to be ashamed or discouraged for a minute, but keep on writing).

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Thinking, Editors

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.67, Simon and Schuster

• 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

• When we commit ourselves to writing for some part of each day, we are happier, more enlightened, alive, light-hearted and generous to everyone else. Even our health improves.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Light, Each Day

• 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

• 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

• The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny; whose attitude is: "Tell me more. Tell me all you can. I want to understand more about everything you feel and know and all the changes inside and out of you. Let more come out." And if you have no such friend,--and you want to write,--well, then you must imagine one.

  Brenda Ueland

  Teacher, Attitude, Love You

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

• We have come to think that duty should come first. I disagree. Duty should be a by-product. Writing, the creative effort, the use of the imagination, should come first – at least, for some part of every day of your life. It is a wonderful blessing if you use it. You will become happier, more enlightened, alive, impassioned, light-hearted and generous to everybody else. Even your health will improve. Colds will disappear and all the other ailments of discouragement and boredom.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Thinking, Blessing

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.12, Simon and Schuster

• The only way to write well, so that people believe what we say and are interested or touched by it, is to slough off all pretentiousness and attitudinizing.

  Brenda Ueland

  Believe, Writing, People

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

• I found that many gifted people are so afraid of writing a poor story that they cannot summon the nerve to write a single sentence for months. The thing to say to such people is: "See how *bad* a story you can write. See how dull you can be. Go ahead. That would be fun and interesting. I will give you ten dollars if you can write something thoroughly dull from beginning to end!" And of course, no one can.

  Brenda Ueland

  Fun, Writing, People

• Advertising companies hire the very brightest, wittiest young people to write for them. Not one single sentence of it is worth repeating. Why? Because it wasn't meant.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, People, Advertising

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

• You have to hold your audience in writing to the very end-much more than in talking, when people have to be polite and listen to you.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Talking, People

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

• everyone who is human has something to express. Try not expressing yourself for twenty-four hours and see what happens. You will nearly burst. You will want to write a long letter, or draw a picture, or sing, or make a dress or a garden.

  Brenda Ueland

  Communication, Writing, Garden

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

• The true self is always in motion like music, a river of life, changing, moving, failing, suffering, learning, shining. That is why you must freely and recklessly make new mistakes - in writing or in life - and do not fret about them but pass on and write more.

  Brenda Ueland

  Mistake, Life Changing, Moving

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.85, Simon and Schuster

• Writing is the action of thinking, just as drawing is the action of seeing and composing music is the action of hearing.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, Thinking, Drawing

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

• 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

• You must become aware of the richness in you and come to believe in it and know it is there, so that you can write opulently and with self-trust. If you once become aware of it and have faith in it, you will be all right.

  Brenda Ueland

  Believe, Writing, Self

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

• 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

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