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You know, I have come to think listening is love, that’s what it really is.

Brenda Ueland

They do not know that ideas come slowly, and that the more clear, tranquil and unstimulated you are, the slower the ideas come, but the better they are.
BRENDA UELAND

Belief More Slowly Unstimulated
Be bold, free, and truthful.
BRENDA UELAND

Freedom Truth Truthful
Writing is the action of thinking, just as drawing is the action of seeing and composing music is the action of hearing.
BRENDA UELAND

Drawing Thinking Writing
Why should we all use our creative power….? Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money.
BRENDA UELAND

Art Compassion Fighting
I found that many gifted people are so afraid of writing a poor story that they cannot summon the nerve to write a single sentence for months.
BRENDA UELAND

Fun People Writing
It is so conceited and timid to be ashamed of one’s mistakes. Of course they are mistakes. Go on to the next.
BRENDA UELAND

Art Go Letting Mistake
Of course, in fairness, I must remind you of this: that we writers are the most lily-livered of all craftsmen. We expect more, for the most peewee efforts, than any other people.
BRENDA UELAND

Effort Lilies People
When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.
BRENDA UELAND

Grows Ideas Listening
If you would shut your door against the children for an hour a day and say: ‘Mother is working on her five-act tragedy in blank verse!’ you would be surprised how they would respect you. They would probably all become playwrights.
BRENDA UELAND

Children Doors Mother
I know that we live after death and again and again, not in the memory of our children, or as a mulch for trees and flowers, however poetic that may be, but looking passionately and egocentrically out of our eyes.
BRENDA UELAND

Children Flower Memories
Advertising companies hire the very brightest, wittiest young people to write for them. Not one single sentence of it is worth repeating. Why? Because it wasn’t meant.
BRENDA UELAND

Advertising People Writing
Your motto: Be Bold, Be Free, Be Truthful.
BRENDA UELAND

Being Bold Motto Truthful
So remember these two things: you are talented and you are original. Be sure of that. I say this because self-trust is one of the very most important things in writing.
BRENDA UELAND

Important Original Self Two Writing
Inspiration does not come like a blot, nor is it kinetic energy striving, but it comes to us slowly and quietly all the time.
BRENDA UELAND

Energy Inspiration Time
If you write something and they all tell you it is bad – editors, critics, everybody – think it over and you may become convinced that they are right (though you are not to be ashamed or discouraged for a minute, but keep on writing).
BRENDA UELAND

Editors Thinking Writing
And so try listening. Listen to your wife, your husband, your father, your mother, your children, your friends; to those who love you and those who don’t, to those who bore you, to your enemies. It will work a small miracle. And perhaps a great one.
BRENDA UELAND

Children Enemies Friends Husband

You know, I have come to think listening is love, that’s what it really is.

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You know, I have come to think listening is love, that’s what it really is.

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