Ralph Keyes Quotes

Authors always feel in danger of being abandoned by loved ones. This is a potent fear. Yet it's as inevitable as writer's cramp when we presume to write words for others to read.

Fear flushes clogged pores of perception.

Any writing exposes writers to judgment about the quality of their work and their thought. The closer they get to painful personal truths, the more fear mounts — not just about what they might reveal but about what they might discover should they venture too deeply inside. To write well, however, that’s exactly where we must venture.

Success as a writer is within the grasp of whoever can tell a story on paper that people want to hear, and is willing to persist, to put up with boredom, frustration, and anxiety.

Find tricks to keep yourself going,” William Least Heat Moon once advised a group of aspiring writers. “Anything you can do to trick yourself out of panicking, do it.

Willa Cather said that she write best when she stopped trying to write and began simply to remember.

writing about something was not the moral equivalent of doing it,

One thing that separates would-be writers from working writers is that the latter know their work will never match their dreams.

If you are in difficulties with a book,” suggested H. G. Wells, “try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn’t expecting it.” This was one way Gail Godwin learned to outfox her “watcher” (the inner critic who kept an eye on her as she worked): looking for times to write when she was off guard. Other tactics Godwin found helpful included writing too fast and in unexpected places and times; working when tired; writing in purple ink on the back of charge card statements; and jotting down whatever came to mind while a tea kettle boiled, using its whistle as a deadline. “Deadlines are a great way to outdistance the watcher,” advised Godwin.

"...wrote Lawrence Block. "Someone once told me that fear and courage are like lightning and thunder; they both start out at the same time, but the fear travels faster and arrives sooner. If we just wait a moment, the requisite courage will be along shortly." (quoted from Write for Your Live by Lawrence Block)"

Christopher Isherwood tried to trick a good topic into rising from his unconscious by irritating it, “deliberately writing nonsense until it intervenes, as it were, saying, ‘All right, you idiot, let me fix this.

Fear is felt by writers at every level. Anxiety accompanies the first word they put on paper and the last.

Those who generate fog are Wizards of Oz hoping desperately that nobody pulls the curtain to reveal a trembling little writer behind it. This seldom happens. Readers who dare to point out that incomprehensible writing can't be comprehended risk being told that the problem is theirs.

Aspiring only to second-place goals is a first-rate way to hedge our bets. Among the least appreciated reasons for doing superficial, second-rate work of any kind is the comfort of knowing that it’s not our best that’s on the line. Far more is at risk when we do what we really want to do rather than something less. I don’t think we’ll ever fully appreciate the role of not daring to risk a shattered dream in limiting people to second-choice careers and third-choice lives.

Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration.