How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. (Introduction.34)
The kind of hope writing requires seems to be something that is both active and passive. You have to keep working, but as you work, you're also waiting for something—other than the lunch bell. Maybe it's the moment when you've finally written the scene or story or novel you're trying to write.
Quote #2
Fantasy keys won't get you in. Almost every single thing you hope publication will do for you is a fantasy, a hologram—it's the eagle on your credit card that only seems to soar. What's real is that if you do your scales every day, if you slowly try harder and harder pieces, if you listen to great musicians play music you love, you'll get better. (Introduction.31)
Being a writer may seem to be about generating J. K. Rowling-length lines at bookstores, but it's actually about the craft of writing itself and what it can do for you in your own life. Fame, it turns out, won't really add anything to your life (except headaches); it's really about who you are as a person and how you relate to your own life and those in it. If you're a mess with no clue about your own self, fame isn't going to solve that and make you magically happy.
Quote #3
I tell this story again because it usually makes a dent in the tremendous sense of being overwhelmed that my students experience. Sometimes it actually gives them hope, and hope, as Chesterton said, is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate. Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. (2.6)
Writing may not seem desperate (unless you're doing your finals essays), but it makes us face up to ourselves and what we need and want. Being cheerful while thinking about your deepest needs does seem like quite a challenge. Good thing tackling it bit by bit can give writers hope.