Holly > Holly's Quotes

“Carefully studying the delicate form of the doll, she was thinking how easy it was to wish for things as a child. Then nothing seemed impossible. Growing up, one realizes how many things one cannot wish for, the things that are forbidden, sinful. Indecent.”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“The trouble with crying over an onion is that once the chopping gets you started and the tears begin to well up, the next thing you know you just can't stop.”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“Tita knew through her own flesh how fire transforms the elements, how a lump of corn flour is changed into a tortilla, how a soul that hasn't been warmed by the fire of love is lifeless, like a useless ball of corn flour.”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“It was very pleasant to savor its aroma, for smells have the power to evoke the past, bringing back sounds and even other smells that have no match in the present. -Tita”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“She felt so lost and lonely. One last chile in walnut sauce left on the platter after a fancy dinner couldn't feel any worse than she did. How many times had she eaten one of those treats, standing by herself in the kitchen, rather than let it be thrown away. When nobody eats the last chile on the plate, it's usually because none of them wants to look like a glutton, so even though they'd really like to devour it, they don't have the nerve to take it. It was as if they were rejecting that stuffed pepper, which contains every imaginable flavor; sweet as candied citron, juicy as pomegranate, with the bit of pepper and the subtlety of walnuts, that marvelous chile in the walnut sauce. Within it lies the secret of love, but it will never be penetrated, and all because it wouldn't feel proper.”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“To write is human, to edit is divine.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot if difference. They don't have to makes speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“When a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor.”
― William Strunk, The Elements of Style

“She was a foreigner and, like all foreigners, she carried with her the shadow of an elsewhere.”
― Elif Shafak, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

“Little did she yet understand that the end of childhood comes not when a child’s body changes with puberty, but when her mind is finally able to see her life through the eyes of an outsider.”
― Elif Shafak, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained. If you really know something, and breathe life into it, they'll know it too.”
― Esther Freud

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves; we need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen for example, would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle would be any kind of food, music, caress, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches. For a moment we are dazzled by an intense emotion. A pleasant warmth grows within us, fading slowly as time goes by, until a new explosion comes along to revive it. Each person has to discover what will set off those explosions in order to live, since the combustion that occurs when one of them is ignited is what nourishes the soul. That fire, in short, is its food. If one doesn't find out in time what will set off these explosions, the box of matches dampens, and not a single match will ever be lighted.”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract.”
― William Strunk Jr., The Elements of Style

“Then she cried without tears, which is said to hurt even more like dry labor.”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; the reader wishes to be told what is... If your every sentence admits a doubt, your writing will lack authority.”
― William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“I need about one hundred fifty drafts of a poem to get it right, and fifty more to make it sound spontaneous.”
― James Dickey

“Poetry empowers the simplest of lives to confront the most extreme sorrows with courage, and motivates the mightiest of offices to humbly heed lessons in compassion.”
― Aberjhani, Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays

“On Writing Poetry: Take everyday words beyond everyday talent and write them alive.”
― C.J. Heck

“Poetry stirs the soul and speaks to the mind to understand the beauty we call life ~ Mala Naidoo”
― Mala Naidoo, Random Heart Poetry: Light and Shade

“Isn't it far better to live a poetic life than to spend one's life writing Poetry?”
― Pietros Maneos, The Italian Pleasures of Gabriele Paterkallos

“I hate writing, I love having written.”
― Dorothy Parker

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
― Terry Pratchett