Quotable Quotes - February 13 through 17

02-13
At its root, perfectionism isn’t really about a deep love of being meticulous. It’s about fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of failure. Fear of success.
~ Michael Law

An admirable line of Pablo Neruda’s, “My creatures are born of a long denial,” seems to me the best definition of writing as a kind of exorcism, casting off invading creatures by projecting them into universal existence, keeping them on the other side of the bridge… It may be exaggerating to say that all completely successful short stories, especially fantastic stories, are products of neurosis, nightmares or hallucination neutralized through objectification and translated to a medium outside the neurotic terrain. This polarization can be found in any memorable short story, as if the author, wanting to rid himself of his creature as soon and as absolutely as possible, exorcises it the only way he can: by writing it.
― Julio Cortázar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

02-14
If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
~  Vincent Van Gogh

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write.
― William Makepeace Thackeray

02-15
A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.
~ George R.R. Martin

I read anything that’s going to be interesting. But you don’t know what it is until you’ve read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there’ll be the making of a novel.
― Terry Pratchett

02-16
The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.
~ Ernest Hermingway

There's nothing on Earth like really nailing the last line of a big book. You have 200 pages to tickle their fancy, and seven words to break their heart.
― Alex de Campi

02-17
The grandest seduction of all is the myth that DOING EVERYTHING BETTER gets us where we want to be. It gets us somewhere, certainly, but not anywhere worth being.
~ Shauna Niequist

Prison always has been a good place for writers, killing, as it does, the twin demons of mobility and diversion.
― Dan Simmons