Ralph Keyes Quotes

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.

Writing is merely public speaking on paper, but to a much larger audience.

Tools are totems, an important weapon in the fight against fear.

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.

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

The most understandable trap is to wait for fear to subside before starting one’s journey. It doesn’t, won’t, and shouldn’t. Too much good writing comes from writers on the edge. Trying to defeat or portage around normal writing anxieties merely postpones the day when we confront our fears directly and find the courage to write.

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.

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.