Chuck Close:

Inspiration is for amateurs.  The rest of us just show up and get to work.

John Krokidas:

Finally, about five years ago, I got a manager and he asked if I had anything else I had been working on. I showed him the script and he said, “Are you freaking joking me? Why have you kept this in hiding? It’s fantastic!” Sometimes it takes some acknowledgement outside your creative circle to know your work is in a good place and you can let it go.

"Five Questions with Kill Your Darlings Director John Krokidas"

Dan Sinker:

"Everyone" isn't an audience.  "Everyone" is a byproduct of an incredibly successful thing that was made for a far more specific bunch of people.  Don't ever make something for "Everyone" make it for someone.  And make that person love it.

"Oh my god, don't make things for 'Everyone.'"

Anne Lamott:

Without revelation and reframing, life can seem like an endless desert of danger with scratchy sand in your shoes, and yet if we remember or are reminded to pay attention, we find so many sources of hidden water, so many bits and chips and washes of color, in a weed or the gravel or a sunrise.  There are so many ways to sweep the sand off our feet.  So we say, "Oh my God.  Thanks."

Help, Thanks, Wow, p. 53

Rachel Held Evans:

Despite what some people say, the Bible is not a blueprint.  It's not a bullet-point list of rules that leaves no room for discussion.  Instead, the Bible is an ancient collection of poetry, letters, history, laws, prophecies, proverbs and stories assembled over thousands of years and written in languages and cultures far different than our own.  It's just the sort of literature to generate conversation.

"Slant"

Rita Mae Brown:

A community is weakened by any member's lying, for whatever reason.  You usually uncover the lie in a crisis, which makes it twice as bad.

Rita Will, p. 206

Frank Schaeffer:

Why do I write about faith and/or include religion and religious people in so many of my books?  What's it to me if I disagree with the New Atheists and with religious fundamentalists?  First, one writes about the life one has experienced.  I've lived religion.  Second, I don't like to be forced to choose between lousy alternatives.  Third, I think that I keep writing about faith because my faith needs affirmation.

Patience With God, p. xii

Adrienne Rich:

We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out-of-control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us of kinship where all is represented as separation.

Marianne Moore:

I seem almost a plagiarist.  [I quote a lot because I'm] just trying to be honorable and not to steal things.  I've always felt that if a thing had been said in the best way, how can you say it better?  If I wanted to say something and somebody had said it ideally, then I'd take it but give the person credit for it.  That's all there is to it.  If you are charmed by an author, I think it's a very strange and invalid imagination that doesn't long to share it.  Somebody else should read it, don't you think?

Eleanor Roosevelt:

To be mature you have to realize what you value most.  It is extraordinary to discover that comparatively few people reach this level of maturity.  They seem never to have paused to consider what has value for them.  They spend great effort and sometimes make great sacrifices for values that, fundamentally, meet no real needs of their own.  Perhaps they have imbibed the values of their particular profession or job, of their community or their neighbors, of their parents or family.  Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one's own values is a tragic waste.  You have missed the whole point of what life is for.

Anne Lamott:

We are too often distracted by the need to burnish our surfaces, to look good so that other people won't know what screwed-up messes we, or our mate or kids or finances, are.  But if you gently help yourself back to the present moment, you see how life keeps stumbling along and how you may actually find your way through another ordinary or impossible day.

Help, Thanks, Wow, p. 52-53

Rachel Held Evans:

The reality of our slanted interpretation is also why prescriptive appeals to "biblical manhood," "biblical womanhood" or "biblical" anything can be so problematic.  When we talk about the Bible in this way, we tend to flatten it out -- emphasizing some passages while neglecting others and often reading our own cultures and experiences into the text.  More often than not, we end up prooftexting -- making our argument with select verses that back it up.  Yet in doing so, we show our real commitment to what we want the Bible to say rather than what it actually says.

"Slant"

Rita Mae Brown:

I've done the best I could given my temperament, my talent, the pressures of daily life.  I don't think any of us can do more than that and there's always someone who will do it better.  Still, you soldier on.

Rita Will, p. xi

Frank Schaeffer:

I find myself praying, "Lord, may none but loving arms ever hold (my granddaughter Lucy)."  That prayer has nothing to do with theology.  I'd pray it whether I believed there is a God or not, for the same reason that on a lovely spring morning when I'm looking at the view of the river that flows past our home I sometimes exclaim, " That's beautiful!" out loud, even when I'm alone.

Patience With God, p. xi

Geneen Roth:

Most of us spend our lives protecting ourselves from losses that have already happened.

Janis Ian:

I'd always looked on myself as the guardian of my talent.  I'd done nothing to earn it; it was given to me at birth.  My job was to protect it and nurture it.  That was the prime commitment in my life, to take care of the artist in me...

Society's Child, p. 222

Lynda Barry:

When you start to think of the arts as not this thing that is going to get you somewhere in terms of becoming an artist or becoming famous or whatever it is that people do, but rather a way of making being in the world not just bearable, but fascinating, then it starts to get interesting again.

Anne Lamott:

Some of us with tiny paranoia issues think that so much information and understanding is being withheld from us -- by colleagues, by family, by life, by God -- knowledge that would save us, and help us break the code and enable us to experience life with peace and amusement.  But in our quieter moments we remember that (a) there are no codes, and (b) if you are paying attention, plenty is being revealed.  

Help, Thanks, Wow, p. 52

Rachel Held Evans:

From gender roles to just about any other issue you can think of, committed and good-hearted Christians often disagree on what the Bible means and how it should be applied to our lives.

Why?  Because the bottom line is that we all bring a set of assumptions and biases to Scripture, and these biases color our perception of what is "biblical."

"Slant"

Austin Kleon:

Anybody who tells people to "do what you love no matter what" should also have to teach a money management course. 

Low overhead + no debt + "do what you love" = a good life.

"I deserve nice things" + debt + "do what you love" = a time bomb.

"On doing what you love"

Emily Dickinson:

To live is so startling, it leaves but little room for other occupations.