So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.

Franz Kafka

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka

When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.

Czeslaw Milosz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz

Poem of Solitary Delights

What a delight is

when on the bamboo matting

in my grass-thatched hut,

all on my own,

I make myself at ease.

What a delight it is

when, borrowing

rare writings from a friend,

I open out

the first sheet.

What a delight it is

when, after a hundred days

of racking my brains,

that verse that wouldn’t come

suddenly turns out well.

What a delight it is

when of a morning,

I get up and go out

to find in full bloom a flower

that yesterday was not there.

What a delight it is

when, skimming through the pages

of a book, I discover a man written of there

who is just like me.

What a delight it is

when everyone admits

its a difficult book,

and I understand it

with no trouble at all.

What a delight it is

when I blow away the ash,

to watch the crimson

of the glowing fire

and hear the water boil.

What a delight it is

when a guest you cannot stand,

arrives, then says to you

‘I’m afraid I can’t stay long,’

and soon goes home.

What a delight it is

when I find a good brush,

steep it hard in water,

lick it on my tongue

and give it its first try.

Tachibana Akemi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachibana_Akemi

so you want to be a writer?

 

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

Charles Bukowski

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski

Publishers

They fuck you up do publishers.

Against them there is no defence.

No letter, postcard, phone-call stirs

The puddle of their indolence.

Each author’s fucked up in his turn.

Each contract is a poison pellet.

And, specially must poets learn

That verse don’t sell, and they don’t sell it.

Man hands on manuscript to man,

Who leaves the thing in St. Tropez.

Get out as quickly as you can

And write a television play.

John Whitworth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whitworth_(poet)

(based on Philip Larkin’s This Be The Verse)

The British Journalist

You cannot hope

to bribe or twist,

thank God! The

British journalist.

But, seeing what

the man will do

unbribed, there’s

no occasion to.

Humbert Wolfe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humbert_Wolfe

All sorrows can be born if you put them in a story.

Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Blixen

“Stop a minute, right where you are. Relax your shoulders, shake your head and spine like a dog shaking off cold water. Tell that imperious voice in your head to be still.” 

Barbara Kingsolver

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Kingsolver

When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you.

George Saunders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Saunders

And the day came when the risk to remain closed in the bud became more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Elizabeth Appell

https://readelizabeth.com/