And the true listener is much more beloved, magnetic than the talker, and he is more effective and learns more and does more good Brenda Ueland More Quotes by Brenda Ueland More Quotes From Brenda Ueland Everyone knows how people who laugh easily create us by their laughter,--making us think of funnier and funnier things. Brenda Ueland laughter people thinking If I did not wear torn pants, orthopedic shoes, frantic disheveled hair, that is to say, if I did not tone down my beauty, people would go mad. Married men would run amuck. Brenda Ueland hair running men 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 The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny; whose attitude is: "Tell me more. Tell me all you can. 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. Brenda Ueland love-you attitude teacher 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 mother doors children When we commit ourselves to writing for some part of each day, we are happier, more enlightened, alive, light-hearted and generous to everyone else. Even our health improves. Brenda Ueland each-day light writing everyone who is human has something to express. Try not expressing yourself for twenty-four hours and see what happens. You will nearly burst. You will want to write a long letter, or draw a picture, or sing, or make a dress or a garden. Brenda Ueland communication garden writing Know that it is good to work. Work with love, and think of liking it when you do it. It is easy and interesting. It is a privilege. There is nothing hard about it but your anxious vanity and fear of failure. Brenda Ueland passion work love Sometimes I think of life as a process where everybody is discouraging and taking everybody else down a peg or two. Brenda Ueland sometimes two thinking Try to discover your true, honest, untheoretical self. Brenda Ueland self-esteem self trying You Do Not Know Is in You— an Inexhaustible Fountain of Ideas. Another reason for writing a diary is to discover that the ideas in you are an inexhaustible fountain. Brenda Ueland fountain knows ideas 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 writing thinking Write a true, careless, slovenly impulsive, honest diary every day of your life. Brenda Ueland honest diaries writing Be bold, free, and truthful. Brenda Ueland truthful freedom truth You have to hold your audience in writing to the very end-much more than in talking, when people have to be polite and listen to you. Brenda Ueland writing talking people ... to paint with oil paints for the first time ... is like trying to make something exquisitely accurate and microscopically clear out of mud pies with boxing gloves on. Brenda Ueland oil pie boxing ... when I am really alone some power seems to grow in me. ... Conjugality made me think of a three-legged race, where two people cannot go fast and keep tripping each other because their two legs are tied together. Brenda Ueland race two thinking we like fixed rules because that ends thinking and we can rest. But there is no resting place down here. Brenda Ueland fixed ends thinking The tragedy of bold, forthright, industrious people is that they act so continuously without much thinking, that it becomes dry and empty. Brenda Ueland tragedy people thinking 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 lilies effort people
