“Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it’s a letdown, they won’t buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.”
~ MICKEY SPILLANE, 9 March 1918
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Bobby Fischer (b. Mar 9): “I like the moment when I break a man’s ego.”
9 Mar
“I like the moment when I break a man’s ego.”
~ Bobby Fischer, b. 9 March 1943
Kat von D (b. Mar 8): “I was born naked, waiting for life to write itself on my skin.”
8 Mar
“Like everyone else, I was born naked and screaming, waiting for my life to write itself on my skin.”
~ Kat von D, b. 8 March 1982
Hart Crane: “One must be drenched in words.”
7 Mar
“One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.”
~ HART CRANE
Piet Mondrian (b. Mar 7): “The artist is a channel.”
7 Mar
“The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.”
~ Piet Mondrian, b. 7 March 1872
Rumer Godden: “A writer who never explores words is like someone with a gold mine who’s never mined it.”
6 Mar
“A writer who has never explored words, who has never searched, seeded, sieved, sifted through his knowledge and memory…dictionaries, thesaurus, poems, favorite paragraphs, to find the right word, is like someone owning a gold mine who has never mined it.”
~ RUMER GODDEN
Shaquille O’Neal (b. Mar 6): “I want to be known as The Big Shakespeare.”
6 Mar
“I want to be known as ‘The Big Shakespeare.’ It was Shakespeare that said, ‘Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them.’”
~ Shaquille O’Neal, b. 6 March 1972
J.B. Priestley: “Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer.”
5 Mar
“Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write. You feel dull, you have a headache, nobody loves you, write. If all feels hopeless, if that famous “inspiration” will not come, write. If you are a genius, you’ll make your own rules, but if not – and the odds are clearly against it – go to your desk, no matter what your mood, face the very challenge of the paper – write.”
~ J. B. PRIESTLEY
Andy Gibb (b. Mar 5): “Girls are always running through my mind.”
5 Mar
“Girls are always running through my mind. They don’t dare walk.”
~ Andy Gibb, b. 5 March 1958
Ursula LeGuin: “I shave with Chekhov’s Razor.”
4 Mar
“Anton Chekhov gave some advice about revising a story: first, he said, throw out the first three pages. As a young writer I figured that if anybody knew about short stories, it was Chekhov, so I tried taking his advice. I really hoped he was wrong, but of course he was right. It depends on the length of the story, naturally; if it’s very short, you can only throw out the first three paragraphs.
But there are few first drafts to which Chekhov’s Razor doesn’t apply. Starting a story, we all tend to circle around, explain a lot of stuff, set things up that don’t need to be set up. Then we find our way and get going, and the story begins… very often just about on page three.”
~ URSULA LeGUIN
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