Write a true, careless, slovenly impulsive, honest diary every day of your life.
BRENDA UELANDDon’t think of yourself as an intestinal tract and tangle of nerves in the skull, that will not work unless you drink coffee.
More Brenda Ueland Quotes
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Orthodox criticism … is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the first ones to get killed off.
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And this fear (since the imagination is always creative) comes about presently and you slide down into the complete slump of several weeks or years – the very thing you dreaded and set your jaw against.
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Self-trust is so important. When you launch on a story, make your neck loose, feel free, good-natured. And be lazy. Feel that you are going to throw it away. Try writing utterly unplanned stories and see what comes out.
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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.
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Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable.
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The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny.
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Sometimes I think of life as a process where everybody is discouraging and taking everybody else down a peg or two.
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I want to understand more about everything you feel and know and all the changes inside and out of you. Let more come out.” And if you have no such friend,–and you want to write,–well, then you must imagine one.
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Be bold, free, and truthful.
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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.
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Families are great murderers of the creative impulsive, particularly husbands.
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And it is why all the bright women of the world, who if more were expected of them, might do important work, but who instead have a chronic feeling of ineffectiveness and sloth.
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These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas, such as: “I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget.” But they have no slow, big ideas.
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Work freely and rollickingly as though you were talking to a friend who loves you. Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at all know-it-alls, jeerers, critics, doubters.
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Know that it is good to work. Work with love and think of liking it when you do it.
BRENDA UELAND







