Phyllis A. Whitney > Quotes

“A good book isn't written, it's rewritten.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Guide to Fiction Writing

“There's only one good reason to be a writer-we can't help it! We'd all like to be rich, famous and successful, but if those are our goals, we're off on a wrong foot...I just wanted to earn enough money so I could work at home on my writing.”
― Phyllis Whitney

“You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist you must learn your craft—then you can add all the genius you like.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney

“As good as' always spells mediocrity. But when a writer's work is in competition with all those thousands of other manuscripts that pour over an editor's desk, he cannot afford to be 'as good as'; he (or she) must be 'better than.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Guide to Fiction Writing

“Reading" had always been my lifeline-- an escape to that imaginary world where hurts were fictional and endings happy...”
― Phyllis Whitney

“Broken hearts mend. It’s a lot harder to mend broken lives.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney

“Good stories are not written, they are rewritten”
― Phyllis A. Whitney

“You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist, you are learning your craft -- then you can add all the genius you like.”
― Phyllis Whitney

“Problem, purpose, conflict, goal. Use them. Think about them while you are in the planning phase of your novel; keep these elements at the back of your mind to guide you while you write. When you have written a scene, make sure they are all there, or that if one or another is missing, it is intentional and the effect is what you want.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney

“There was a brass bedstead with a tan spread, on which slept a big, tiger-striped yellow cat.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, The Trembling Hills

“Better to leave dreams alone than to have them destroyed in the space of moments.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Dream of Orchids

“How foolishly we all bound ourselves into the very chains that could destroy us.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Dream of Orchids

“The giving of love took nothing from others.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Dream of Orchids

“The sad thing would be an old house that wasn't haunted because there was no one left to remember those who had gone before, or to tell stories about them.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Mystery of the Haunted Pool

“Gracious, there’s that horrible cat! Don’t touch him, miss. He’s possessed. He goes and comes as he pleases and there’s no help for it. I do believe he goes through closed doors, he’s that sneaky.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, The Trembling Hills

“Amalie”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Lost Island

“Emotions often change by morning. A sorrow that seems unbearable in the darkness often disappears with the coming of the sun.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Secret of the Emerald Star

“Indignantly Allison hooked the great cat over her shoulder like a fur piece. “Comstock is not a savage. Next to my brother Nick he’s the finest gentleman in all San Francisco.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, The Trembling Hills

“Pity was looking down on someone less fortunate than yourself. It was quite different from sympathy.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Secret of the Emerald Star

“One of the things I like about big cities is the way people of different races and religions get to know one another. There's so much we all need to learn. If we only talk to our own kind of people , how can we learn enough in time to learn to live safely in the sort of world we have today?”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Secret of the Emerald Star

“If you're sorry for her, that means you're putting yourself above her. Anything can be terrible if we make it terrible, or if we let other people tell us how terrible it is.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Secret of the Emerald Star

“Obsessions never count the cost.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Dream of Orchids

“San Francisco was invigorating. She looked about in utter delight.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, The Trembling Hills

“Most of my writing has been concerned with understanding between people. Whether of different races, or religions, or even in the same family I tried in my books...to deal with the subject of understanding the other fellow.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney

“But it's awful if people won't change," Robin said.
"Time changes things," Mother assured her. "The people who won't change have sons and daughters growing up, and the sons and daughters have children of their own. Although you can't talk to the old people with much success, the younger ones belong to a new world and sometimes they will listen, and their sons and daughters will listen. So old prejudices will die and there is change and growth. You young people are the ones who will make this move faster.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Secret of the Emerald Star

“I suppose we run into accidents and coincidences every day. What matters are the choices we make. If we let an important chance slip by without even trying, then what do we have?”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Dream of Orchids

“When the hurting stops, death becomes final, so we cling to pain.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Dream of Orchids

“Of course everyone's a person. But sometimes we act as if people were only labels. Like deaf, or blind, or lame. We forget about the person and only see the word.”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Secret of the Emerald Star

“green trench coat so that it hid brown hair that reached”
― Phyllis A. Whitney, Hunter's Green