Cheryl Thompson > Cheryl's Quotes

“Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“This afternoon, burn down the house. Tomorrow, pour critical water upon the simmering coals. Time enough to think and cut and rewrite tomorrow. But today-explode-fly-apart-disintegrate! The other six or seven drafts are going to be pure torture. So why not enjoy the first draft, in the hope that your joy will seek and find others in the world who, by reading your story, will catch fire, too?”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes...you're Doing Something.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Somewhere in all the snow, she could see her broken heart, in two pieces.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“The best word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words. They were the ones who could climb the highest. One such word shaker was a small, skinny girl. She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“The point is, it didn’t really matter what the book was about. It was what it meant that was important.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“What are the best things and the worst things in your life, and when are you going to get around to whispering or shouting them?”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

“And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“Write. Don't think. Relax.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“Think of Shakespeare and Melville and you think of thunder, lightning, wind. They all knew the joy of creating in large or small forms, on unlimited or restricted canvases. These are the children of the gods.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“When I look at my life and its secret colours, I feel like bursting into tears.”
― Albert Camus, A Happy Death

“It is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble your foe.”
― Anne Brontë

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes

“It's amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.”
― John Guare, Landscape of the Body

“Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you.”
― Miranda July

“Thanks again for saving me. Someday, I’ll save you too.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

“Excuse me for being so intellectual. I know you would prefer something nice and feminine and affectionate.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

“Life has puffed and blown itself into a summer day, and clouds and spring billow over the heavens as if calendars were a listing of mathematical errors.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

“But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.”
― Stephen King, ’Salem’s Lot

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast