Chuck Wendig > Quotes

“Write as much as you can.
As fast as you can.
Finish your shit.
Hit your deadlines.
Try very hard not to suck.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Here are the two states in which you may exist: person who writes, or person who does not. If you write: you are a writer. If you do not write: you are not. Aspiring is a meaningless null state that romanticizes Not Writing. It’s as ludicrous as saying, “I aspire to pick up that piece of paper that fell on the floor.” Either pick it up or don’t. I don’t want to hear about how your diaper’s full. Take it off or stop talking about it.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Creativity needs time. We’re all dying. Fuck stagnation. High-five creation.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Writers are made--forged, really, in a kiln of their own madness and insecurities--over the course of many, many moons. The writer you are when you begin is not the same as the writer you become.”
― Chuck Wendig, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing

“Did you just say shrug instead of actually shrugging?”
― Chuck Wendig, Blackbirds

“We're all the heroes of our own tales. Even villains.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Moon in the sky, stars out, the wide-open expanse of nothing: it made him feel free and alive as the daytime never did.”
― Chuck Wendig, Wanderers

“Failure is an instruction manual written in scar tissue.”
― Chuck Wendig

“If you want to find the way forward, then stop looking for maps and start walking.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Gotta have a head like a wrecking ball, a spirit like one of them punching clown dummies that always weeble-wobbles back up to standing. This takes time. Stories need to find the right home, the right audience. Stick with it. Quitting is for sad pandas.”
― Chuck Wendig, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing

“Use the words that live inside your head. And if the words that live inside your head are those of a sentimental Victorian troubadour, then please close your head in a door jamb until you kill all that overwrought prose in an act of brain damage.”
― Chuck Wendig, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing

“With the blood of a scoundrel and a princess in his veins, his defiance will shake the stars.”
― Chuck Wendig, Empire's End

“Vampires are slicker than goose shit on a glass window.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Stories are like wine; they need time. So take the time. This isn’t a hot dog eating contest. You’re not being judged on how much you write but rather, how well you do it. Sure, there’s a balance — you have to be generative, have to be swimming forward lest you sink like a stone and find remora fish mating inside your rectum. But generation and creativity should not come at the cost of quality. Give your stories and your career the time and patience it needs.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Even a small group of people can change the galaxy.”
― Chuck Wendig, Aftermath

“Always quick with the wit. It's your defense, isn't it? Little girl doesn't want the world to know how sad she is, how damaged. Your words, your attitude, all a big misdirection. A magician's trick.”
― Chuck Wendig, Mockingbird

“Storytellers think they're writing for the audience. They're writing, in a way, to hurt the audience.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Stories have the power to make people feel. To give a shit. To change their opinions. To change the world.”
― Chuck Wendig, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing

“I’m a certified bad-ass indestructible bitch. The sun tries to burn me, I’ll kick him in his fiery balls. I don’t need no stinking suntan lotion.”
― Chuck Wendig, The Cormorant

“That is how science and medicine are practiced best, though—we are best when we admit our ignorance up front, and then attempt to fill the darkness of not-knowing with the light of information and knowledge.”
― Chuck Wendig, Wanderers

“if there’s one mystical energy that powers the galaxy, it’s not the Force. It’s pure, unadulterated irony.”
― Chuck Wendig, Life Debt

“Words hurt as bad as a fist. Maybe worse. Because a fist, maybe you excuse that as oh, he couldn’t help it, he’s just an animal, a primate, his blood was up. But someone cuts you with words? Calls you names, tells you how little they think of you? That bypasses all your armor. A razor sliding across the meat of your heart.”
― Chuck Wendig, The Staircase in the Woods

“A HUG IS LIKE VIOLENCE MADE OF LOVE.”
― Chuck Wendig, Empire's End

“People are weird, Atlanta thinks. Everybody’s someone different than you suspect.”
― Chuck Wendig, Atlanta Burns

“She thinks, I want an orange soda. And I want vodka to mix into the orange soda. And while we're at it, I'd also like to stop being able to see how people are going to bite it. Oh, and a pony. I definitely want a goddamn pony.”
― Chuck Wendig, Blackbirds

“In horror’s wake, hope was a bountiful garden.”
― Chuck Wendig, The Book of Accidents

“I love you in the future tense: I will love you, tomorrow and the day after and the day after that until there are no more days left for us.”
― Chuck Wendig, Wanderers

“Buying gifts for a kid. Can we get him a cute little cape and a mustache so he looks like old Uncle Lando?” Lobot”
― Chuck Wendig, Empire's End

“Friendship is like a house,” Lore finally managed to say, Owen’s head cradled in her lap. “You move into this place together. You find your own room there, and they find theirs, but there’s all this common space, all these shared places. And you each put into it all the things you love, all the things you are. Your air becomes their air. You put your hearts on the coffee table, next to the remote control, vulnerable and beautiful and bloody. And this friendship, this house, it’s a place of laughter and fun and togetherness, too. But there’s frustration sometimes. Agitation. Sometimes that gets big, too big, all the awful feelings, all that resentment, building up like carbon monoxide. Friendship, like a house, can go bad, too. That air you share? Goes sour. Dry rot here, black mold there, and if you don’t remediate, it just grows and grows. Gets bad enough, one or all of you have to move out. And then the place just fucking sits there, abandoned. Empty and gutted. Another ruin left to that force in the world that wants everything to fall apart. You can move back into a place like that, sometimes. But only if you tear it all down and start again.”
― Chuck Wendig, The Staircase in the Woods

“Here’s how we do things in America: We identify a problem, then we promptly ignore it until it’s not just biting our ass, but it’s already eaten the right cheek and has started on the left.”
― Chuck Wendig, Wanderers