William Timmes > William's Quotes

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers

“No one in the world gets what they want and that is beautiful.”
― They Might Be Giants

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Step 1: Write Something That May Change Your Life”
― John Truby, The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
― Bruce Lee

“A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.”
― Dhammapada, The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”
― George R.R. Martin

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Without training, they lacked knowledge.
Without knowledge, they lacked confidence.
Without confidence, they lacked victory.”
― Julius Caesar

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Mark Twain

“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Don't fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”
― Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

“Good storytelling lets the audience relive events in the present so they can understand the forces, choices, and emotions that led the character to do what he did.”
― John Truby, The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Lucas wasn’t paying for a movie; he was buying his own creative freedom.”
― Brian Jay Jones, George Lucas: A Life

“Fear cuts deeper than swords.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“I would rather be a brainless beast than a heartless monster, like you.”
― Goku

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Never laugh at live dragons.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
― Confucius, Confucius: The Analects

“What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it is really a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things.”
― Shigeru Miyamoto

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one”
― Bruce Lee

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
― Mahatma Gandhi