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"But you don't always get what you want;,you get what you get."
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"Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them."
Writing
"Almost every single thing you hope publication will do for you is a fantasy, a hologram--it's the eagle on your credit card that only seems to soar."
Illusion
"And then, unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere, a thought or image arrives. Some will float into your head like goldfish, lovely, bright, orange, and weightless, and you follow them like a child at an aquarium that was thought to be without fish. Others will step of the shadows like Boo Radley and make you catch your breath or take a step backward. They're often so rich, these unbidden thoughts, and so clear that they feel indelible. But I say write them all down anyway."
Creativity
"Resentments make even the best of us feel superior."
Emotion
"Laughter is carbonated holiness."
Humor
"The clipping said forgiveness meant that God is for giving, and that we are here for giving too, and that to withold love or blessings is to be completely delusional."
Forgiveness
"And we've read scary books and watched scary movies and TV shows together. He's met monsters, ghouls, and demons on the page and on the screen. There's nothing like watching Anaconda with your best friend or lying in bed next to your mother reading Roald Dahl, because that way you get to explore dark stuff safely. You get to laugh with it, to step out on the vampire's dance floor and take him for a spin, and then step back into your life. When you make friends with fear, it can't rule you."
Fear
"It is unearned love--the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It's the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there."
Grace
"The Amen is only as good as the attitude. If you are trying to finish up quickly so you can check your cell phone messages, you are missing the chance to spend quiet moments with the giver of life and the eternal, which means you may reap continued feelings of life racing along without you. So as Samuel Beckett admonished us to fail again, and fail better, we try to pray again, and pray better, for slightly longer and with slightly more honesty, breathing more, deeper, and with more attention."
Faith
"E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard."
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"Why harrow oneself by looking on the worst side?... Because it is sometimes necessary."
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Personal Development
"A goodlookin horse is like a goodlookin woman, he said. They're always more trouble than what they're worth. What a man needs is just one that will get the job done."
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Personal Development
"Realism can break a writer's heart."
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Personal Development
"Expectations are at war, if good feeling and discomfort clash. When we are expecting zest and joy, our good karma may be ousted by distress and frustration, if negative downbeat waves are emitted. Just with a feel of realism, without prejudice, should we step into the future. What will be, will be. Only the fortune of war will tell, since life may be war or peace. ['Fish for silence.']"
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Personal Development
"In meetings philosophy might work,on the field practicality works."
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Personal Development
"Sometimes it is not right to wait for the right train. Take any train instead of rotting at the station! In other words, be realistic!"
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Personal Development
"Remember to get the weather in your damn book--weather is very important."
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Personal Development
"I am a believer in sensible choices, so different from many of my own. Also in sensible names for children."
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Personal Development
"Never expect wolves to behave like sheep."
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Personal Development
"If I sound as if I'm always predicting ominous things, it's because I'm a pragmatist. I use deductive reasoning to generalize, and I suppose this sometimes ends up sounding like unlucky prophecies. You know why? Because reality's just the accumulation of ominous prophecies come to life. You have to only open a newspaper on any given day and weigh the good news versus the bad, and you'll see what I mean."
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Personal Development
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