Throughout the year, I take notes on my favorite books—copying down quotes that matter to me. Here are some of my favorites for you.

 

On regret

“It’s been over for a long time, but you won’t let it go. It’s like you have this whole fantastic book in front of you, but you just keep reading the same awful chapter over and over again. It’s time to turn the page, … and get on with the next part of the story.”

From A Kind of Paradise by Amy Rebecca Tan (p. 162)

 

On hope

“The person who makes things is a sign of hope.” —Corita Kent

From Make Meatballs Sing by Matthew Burgess

 

 

On writing for yourself

“Why do you keep a diary then?” I said. “What’s the point of it?”

…

“It’s to make sense of things,” she said, at last. “Nothing’s as bad if you put it in writing. It helps you to take control, order things. Find a pattern, like you said. When I was at my happiest, or when I was having more fun, at university, I didn’t write at all. I started again when my marriage began to go wrong. It’s a form of therapy, I suppose. There’s a strange comfort in looking back at your worst times and realizing that you got through them.”

From The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths (pp. 224-225)

 

On the writing habit

“The time you spend on art is the time it spends with you; there are no shortcuts, no crash courses, no fast tracks. Only the experience.” –Jeanette Winterson, The Secret Life of Us

From A Writer’s Guide to Persistence by Jordan Rosenfeld (p. 30)

 

 

On writing for others

“The newspaper employed professional word weavers who spun ideas into phrases, and phrases into stories, and stories into conversations that changed the world.”

From The Story Seeker by Kristin O’Donnell Tubb (p. 34)

 

On rest

“The greatest geniuses sometimes accomplish more when they work less.”

Attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci in Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Artists.

From Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (p. 33)

 

 

On reading

“She packed a book, as you never knew when you’d need a book.”

From Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

 

 

On adventure

“Is there any feeling as delicious as the beginning of a new adventure? To be perched upon the precipice of a fresh endeavor, poised for new flight, the winds of change ruffling the feathers, ah, that is what it means to be alive!”

From A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna Raybourn (p. 17)

 

I hope that this break brings you plenty of rest, a good book, and the hope of new adventures!

 

Happy writing,

Rochelle, the Write Now! Coach