If I'm writing by intuition, generally that calculation works itself out. But if I'm writing a mystery, and somebody has to have a reason for doing what he's doing, and it's not anything I can imagine myself wanting to do, things get a little more difficult to write, and careless mistakes are made.

Cynthia Voigt

Categorized in : Writing Mistake Intuition

She looked at her hand: Just some hand, holding a cheap pen. Some girls’ hand. She had nothing to do with that hand. Let that hand do whatever it wanted to.

Cynthia Voigt

hand-holding girl hands

You could say that all of life is a series of last chances.

Cynthia Voigt

lasts chance life

When a daring idea first crosses one's mind, if it is to be realized in the future it is often appealing. Then, as the time for its execution comes nearer, one begins to dread that which had once been anticipated.

Cynthia Voigt

mind ideas firsts

People can be unimaginably foolish...and they can be unimaginably grand, at times.

Cynthia Voigt

foolish people

I got to thinking—when it was too late—you have to reach out to people. To your family, too. You can't just let them sit there, you should put your hand out. If they slap it back, well you reach out again if you care enough. If you don't care enough, you forget about them, if you can.

Cynthia Voigt

hands people thinking

I do have trouble starting books. I have ideas that I have trouble starting to write. But I'm the kind of person who tends to finish everything she starts out of sheer stubbornness.

Cynthia Voigt

writing book ideas

Even the bad books I write are satisfying. I'm my least critical reader.

Cynthia Voigt

writing book

I have the feeling that I know who I am, only I'm not anymore.

Cynthia Voigt

who-i-am knows feelings

By the time I started high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer. After graduating from Smith College in Massachusetts, I moved to New York City and worked for the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.

Cynthia Voigt

college new-york school

Kids are really tougher than adults, but we tend to forget this in an affluent society that lets kids indulge themselves.

Cynthia Voigt

adults forget kids

I got used to being a writer. To compare it to teaching - I taught for twenty-five years; for the first two or three years it was heady. I was discovering that I could do something and do it well. Be useful to people. It was exhilarating, sort of like the first two weeks of being in love with somebody, and then it becomes like the third bite of pizza. The first bite is wonderful. The second bite is not disappointing. The third? Meh. You get used to it.

Cynthia Voigt

being-in-love teaching people

I was no scholar in college, and was arrogant about what I thought.

Cynthia Voigt

arrogant scholar college

I didnt write anything at all except book reports until I was in seventh grade, and then I wrote mostly poetry for myself.

Cynthia Voigt

grades writing book

I love teaching; I love little kids.

Cynthia Voigt

teaching littles kids

All I wanted to do was read, to be told stories. Stories were full of excitement and emotions and characters that entertained and often inspired.

Cynthia Voigt

emotion stories character

...a really good friend, the kind of friend who - when they were together both of them were more able to be who they really were.

Cynthia Voigt

good-friend able together

The worst things weren't outside of you.

Cynthia Voigt

worst-things worst self

Maybe life was like a sea, and all the people were like boats ... Everybody who was born was cast into the sea. Winds would blow them in all directions. Tides would rise and turn, in their own rhythm. And the boats - they just went along as best they could, trying to find a harbor.

Cynthia Voigt

blow wind life

But I'll tell you something else, too. Something I've learned, the hard way. I guess"—Gram laughed a little—"I'm the kind of person who has to learn things the hard way. You've got to hold on. Hold on to people. They can get away from you. It's not always going to be fun, but if you don't—hold on—then you lose them.

Cynthia Voigt

littles fun people

...When this map was made, there was only empty forest in the south," Gran told Birle."Not empty," Granda corrected her. "The forest is never empty.

Cynthia Voigt

maps empty forests