“The actual writing is what you live for. The rest is something you have to get through in order to arrive at the point.”

“In order to arrive at what you are not, you must go through the way in which you are not.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“Mostly, you write a script and someone’s gonna rewrite you. They get hundreds of— not hundred but they get ten writers to write something. If you have a big budget, you can go and get a lot of people to write on script…. I just actually heard that somebody said, 'Well, your screenplay got bought and now someone like Carrie Fisher will come in and rewrite you.' And I feel terrible, you know, because that’s not what I mean to do. My idea was never to raid something and trash it, you know. ‘Cause that – that’s more work for me!”

Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) American actress, screenwriter and novelist

“You don't have to make something that people call art. Living is an artistic activity, there is an art to getting through the day.”

Viggo Mortensen (1958) American actor

“This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. […] You practice whether you want to or not.
Through practice you actually do get better.
Sit down with the least expectation of yourself; say "I am free to write the worst junk in the world."”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

“…deep-diving love, a love that excavates you. It’s something you have to have before you die in order to have lived.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

“To be mature you have to realize what you value most… Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one's own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“You know what’s a great metaphor for love? Sleeping beauty. Because you have to plow through this incredible thicket of thorns in order to get to beauty, and even then, when you get there, you still have to wake her up.
— Tiny Cooper”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.”

Ellen Goodman (1941) American journalist and writer

“In order to write about life first you must live it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist