Nonfiction Writing Quotes

“The challenge of writing
Is to see your horribleness on the page
To see your terribleness
And then go to bed.
And wake up the next day
And take that horribleness and terribleness,
And refine it,
And make it not so terrible and not so horrible.
And then to go to bed again.
And come the next day,
And refine it a little bit more,
And make it not so bad.
And then to go to bed again.
And do it again the next day,
And make it maybe average,
And then one more time,
If you’re lucky,
Maybe you get to good,
And if you’ve done that,
That’s a success.”
― Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

“Writing - the act of one person giving a piece of their soul to another.”
― J. Spredemann

“You know what I love about writing non-fiction? The story is already there. I just have to write it down.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Inside The Mind of an Introvert: Comics, Deep Thoughts and Quotable Quotes

“For academically talented women, in contrast, school success does not guarantee occupational success. Even the best female college students need people who will support them, encourage them, and – most important—who will connect them to opportunities.”
― Karen Arnold, Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School Valedictorians: A Fourteen-year Study of Achievement and Life Choices

“You cannot reach a mind that chooses to be closed or is so incapacitated that even if, momentarily, it wanted to integrate properly, it could not. Such a mind lacks the capacity of full focus, and is the proper concern only of a psychotherapist.”
― Ayn Rand, The Art of Nonfiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers

“The record is clear; nothing succeeds like success and there is no predictor of academic success better than a history of academic success.”
― Karen Arnold, Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School Valedictorians: A Fourteen-year Study of Achievement and Life Choices

“Extremely talented students face an odd danger: they do so well in the paths they choose that they might not question whether the direction really fits them.”
― Karen Arnold, Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School Valedictorians: A Fourteen-year Study of Achievement and Life Choices

“College bonds weakened for students of who lived off campus, took outside employment, and maintained active family commitments. Unskilled in navigating the university, these students were unlikely to enter the personal networks where insiders traded the practical information they desperately needed.”
― Karen Arnold, Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School Valedictorians: A Fourteen-year Study of Achievement and Life Choices

“The stories of successful channels, stifling ruts, and missed paths all point to the same conclusion: the successful passage from school to postschool achievement requires an interpersonal process of increasing self-understanding, career socialization, and tacit knowledge.”
― Karen Arnold, Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School Valedictorians: A Fourteen-year Study of Achievement and Life Choices

“As a start-up writer, there is need for you to define your area of interest. You should know what inspires you to becoming a writer. Choose what interests you most and make it your pathway to achieving your dream, then work on it. Both fiction and nonfiction writers have everything in common- they are writers, authors, and the both achieve greatness and influence when they write prolifically.”
― Godspower Oparaugo, The ABC of Writing: The Simplest Method to Write Books

“There are numerous choices placed before us, but we make a decision to choose the best that would meet our needs. Nothing can possibly become yours until you make a decision to take it or claim it, either through peace or by force. Sometimes, we would not have access to what belongs to us until we apply force.”
― Godspower Oparaugo, Decide Your Future

“Without discipline, nothing valuable is worth gaining. Listen, the money you chase, the wisdom you seek and the success you want, can easily be gotten when you apply discipline in all you do. Know how to invest than to waste. Spend time in disciplining yourself. That’s what successful people do. You cannot succeed without discipline, and you can’t also make the right decision without discipline.”
― Godspower Oparaugo, Decide Your Future

“The fear of missing out was a powerful deterrent.”
― John Carreyrou, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

“For Churchill residents, particularly those who, like Lance, grew up in the community, bear awareness is. both ingrained and a matter of pride; appropriately safe behaviors are second-nature. The approach is one of neither blustering bravado nor crippling caution; common sense prevails”
― Kieran Mulvaney, The Great White Bear: A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear

“Nonfiction writing should always have a point: It should leave the reader with a set of facts, or an idea, or a point of view, that he didn’t have before he started reading. Writers may write for any number of good personal reasons—ego, therapy, recollection, validation of their lives. But what they produce will have a validity of its own to the extent that it’s useful to somebody else.”
― William Zinsser, Writing to Learn: How to Write--And Think--Clearly about Any Subject at All