Thought For The Day

[Paul Whybrow]

If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.
François Mauriac

 

[RK Wallis]

I can't stop rereading Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik.

 

[Ancora Imparo]

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Whether you love or hate history, whether you believe Mantel is factual or not. For me, this is a masterclass in how to be right inside a character's head.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Albert Einstein

 

[Steve C]

I keep rereading my own book. Every time I change something. I wish I could stop.

 

[Steve C]

He boiled down a hundred pages of mathematics into a simple equation. E =mc2 (c squared) or Energy = mass x the square of the speed of light.
A revolutionary insight which resulted in humans harnessing atomic energy. An amazing mind.
I wonder if I could boil my 400 page novel into a few sentences. It's what agent Pete tells us to do for our blurb but not being Einstein it ain't so easy.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

No-one does it all alone. Even Einstein had help along the way, from his first -physicist -wife.

 

[Andy D]

The older I get the more I realise things I thought I understood I, er, don’t!

 

[Ancora Imparo]

I also like that he said, "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then is an empty desk a sign?" This gives me comfort when I can no longer see the top of my desk.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Stephen King

 

[RK Wallis]

That's true with writing. Too many long sentences bog down writing...

 

[RK Wallis]

And perseverance in the face of criticism and the ability to take on board that criticism and use it to constantly improve your story.

 

[Steve C]

I am a tenacious bugger and go full-on with most things I do so work is no problem. It's the talent I worry about
It doesn't matter how much talent and hard work you put in if you are unlucky. Luck is sometimes glorious, sometimes disastrous and we have no control over it.

 

[Eva Ulian]

As any wise teacher knows.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

The walls of books around me, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters.

Ross Macdonald

 

[Paul Whybrow]

We now know that memories are not fixed or frozen, like Proust’s jars of preserves in a larder, but are transformed, disassembled, reassembled, and recategorized with every act of recollection.

Oliver Sacks

 

[Paul Whybrow]

A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick – a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.

Neil Gaiman

 

[Paul Whybrow]

(Hollywood’s) conception of what makes a good picture is still as juvenile as its treatment of writing talent is insulting and degrading.

Raymond Chandler

 

[Paul Whybrow]

You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realise how seldom they do.

David Foster Wallace

 

[Barbara]

That's just so true...

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Liberating. And no reason why they should, apart from those we connect with, and think of often.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.

Pearl S. Buck

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Style is knowing what you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.

Gore Vidal

 

[Paul Whybrow]

You are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits.

from the Bhagavad Gita

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn’t go away.

Philip K. Dick

 

[Steve C]

He's right there! I couldn't believe my electricity bill last month and it didn't go away either. Must have been real

 

[Paul Whybrow]

When asked: “If you could edit your past, what would you change?” Peter Carey replied: “I’d get rid of all the commas.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Carey_(novelist)

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Some 'bad' things I would have to keep. Pivotal. Too much learning attached. One or two other things, I would edit if I could. Still much learning attached, but my second baby would have been OK. He would have made it, and there would be three living children.
That's where acceptance comes in.

 

[E G Logan]

When asked: “If you could edit your past, what would you change?” Peter Carey replied: “I’d get rid of all the commas.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Carey_(novelist)

I think he's ducking the question, but wittily.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.

Barbara Kingsolver