"In high school, I won a prize for an essay on tuberculosis. When I got through writing the essay, I was sure I had the disease."

Constance Baker Motley, American Activist

Writing, Disease, School

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"In high school, I won a prize for an essay on tuberculosis. When I got through writing the essay, I was sure I had the disease."

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"You spill a lot of beans in historical fiction. Crime fiction is about spilling no beans at all. You spill the least beans you possibly can. So because I had already written historical fiction before I was really good at the spilling beans section, but the new skill I had to learn when I was writing Brighton Belle was difficult. I had to avoid the equivalent of shouting, "this character's a murderer! Look who did it!."

Sara Sheridan, Scottish Author

Writing, Mystery, Storytelling, Secrets, Skill

"Don't say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me."

C. S. Lewis, British Author

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"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, American Author

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"We write, edit, and rewrite the story of our own life employing descriptive words, metaphors, and symbols. Our lives are full of symbols including those supplied by nature and religion, which touch upon the mystical and spiritual aspects of life. Symbols inspire enduring hope by formulating idealist expectations."

Kilroy J. Oldster, American Author

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"I'm a fairly undisciplined writer."

Neil Gaiman, British Author

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"Writers aren't exactly people, they're a bunch of people trying to be one person."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, American Author

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"My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

John F. Kennedy, American President

Writing, Americans, Country

"Pour your heart onto the page."

A. D. Posey, American Poet

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"One of my rules is never explain. A writer is a lot like a magician, if you explain how the trick works then a lot of the magic turns mundane."

Laurell K. Hamilton, American Writer

Writing, Magic, Rules

"Twofold misjudgement. - The misfortune suffered by clear-minded and easily understood writers is that they are taken for shallow and thus little effort is expended on reading them: and the good fortune that attends the obscure is that the reader toils at them and ascribes to them the pleasure he has in fact gained from his own zeal."

Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher

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Explore more quotes by Constance Baker Motley

"I rejected the notion that my race or sex would bar my success in life."

Life

"The fact is that racism, despite all the doomsayers, has diminished."

Fact

"When I was 15, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. No one thought this was a good idea."

Thought

"I remember being infuriated from the top of my head to the tip of my toes the first time a screen was put around Bob Carter and me on a train leaving Washington in the 1940s."

Time

"My parents never told us that our great-grandmothers had been slaves."

Parenting

"There is no longer a single common impediment to blacks emerging in this society."

Society

"The middle class, in the white population, encompasses a wide swath."

Social Class

"Affirmitive action is extremely complex because it appears in many different forms."

Action

"In my view, I did not get to the federal bench because I was a woman."

Woman

"In high school, I discovered myself. I was interested in race relations and the legal profession. I read about Lincoln and that he believed the law to be the most difficult of professions."

Legal