...writing is not a performance but a generosity. Brenda Ueland More Quotes by Brenda Ueland More Quotes From Brenda Ueland But the great artists like Michelangelo and Blake and Tolstoi--like Christ whom Blake called an artist because he had one of the most creative imaginations that ever was on earth--do not want security, egoistic or materialistic. Why, it never occurs to them. "Be not anxious for the morrow," and "which of you being anxious can add one cubit to his stature?" So they dare to be idle, i.e. not to be pressed and duty-driven all the time. They dare to love people even when they are very bad, and they dare not to try and dominate others to show them what they must do for their own good. Brenda Ueland artistpeacepeople Inspiration comes to us slowly and quietly . prime it with a little solitude. Brenda Ueland solitudeinspirationlittles We are always afraid to start something that we want to make very good, true, and serious. Brenda Ueland truthinspirationallife I readan article by a highly educated man wherein he told with what conscientious pains he had brought up all his children tobe skeptical of everything, never to believe anything in life or religion or their own feelings without submitting it to many rational doubts, to have a persistent, thoroughly skeptical, doubting attitude toward everything.... I think he might as well have taken them out in the backyard and killed them with an ax. Brenda Ueland painfaithattitude Writing is the action of thinking, just as drawing is the action of seeing and composing music is the action of hearing. Brenda Ueland drawingwritingthinking All children have creative power. Brenda Ueland creativepowerchildren We are always doing something, talking, reading, listening to the radio, planning what next. The mind is kept naggingly busy on some easy, unimportant external thing all day. Brenda Ueland readinglisteningtalking It is only by expressing all that is inside that purer and purer streams come. Brenda Ueland streamscreativity The only way to write well, so that people believe what we say and are interested or touched by it, is to slough off all pretentiousness and attitudinizing. Brenda Ueland writingbelievepeople You must become aware of the richness in you and come to believe in it and know it is there, so that you can write opulently and with self-trust. If you once become aware of it and have faith in it, you will be all right. Brenda Ueland selfwritingbelieve Your motto: Be Bold, Be Free, Be Truthful. Brenda Ueland being-truthfulmottotruthful The only way to love a person is...by listening to them and seeing and believing in the god, in the poet, in them. For by doing this, you keep the god and the poet alive and make it flourish. Brenda Ueland alivelisteningbelieve ... the spirit, I think, is a stream, a fountain, and must be continually poured out, for only if it is poured out will more and clearer streams come. Brenda Ueland fountainspiritthinking ...at last I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had. Brenda Ueland feelingswritingpeople It is so conceited and timid to be ashamed of one's mistakes. Of course they are mistakes. Go on to the next. Brenda Ueland letting-gomistakeart I want to write about the great and powerful thing that listening is. And how we forget it. And how we don't listen to our children, or those we love. And least of all - which is so important, too - to those we do not love. But we should. Because listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force...When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life. Brenda Ueland powerfulwritingchildren You can write anything you want to,--a six-act blank verse, symbolic tragedy or a vulgar short, short story. Just so that you write it with honesty and gusto, and do not try to make somebody believe that you are smarter than you are. What's the use? You can never be smarter than you are. Brenda Ueland honestywritingbelieve Remember William Blake who said: "Improvement makes straight, straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius." The truth is, life itself, is always startling, strange, unexpected. But when the truth is told about it everybody knows at once that it is life itself and not made up. But in ordinary fiction, movies, etc, everything is smoothed out to seem plausible--villains made bad, heroes splendid, heroines glamorous, and so on, so that no one believes a word Brenda Ueland heroordinarybelieve Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be. Brenda Ueland speakselfthinking If you write, good ideas must come welling up into you so that you have something to write. If good ideas do not come at once, or for a long time, do not be troubled at all. Wait for them. Put down little ideas no matter how insignificant they are. But do not feel, any more, guilty about idleness and solitude. Brenda Ueland writinglongideas
