Katherine Hauswirth
Harriet's Voice:
Inspiration for Mothers who Write
Wise Words: Quotes from Published Writing Mothers and Other Sources of Inspiration
Bee Lavender and Maia Rossini in Mamaphonic: Balancing Motherhood and Other Creative Acts
Motherhood might slow down art. Children might interrupt those moments of concentration. But we flatly refuse to agree with the idea that becoming a mother is the end. Because it’s not. It’s the beginning.
Barbara Sher in I Could Do Anything if Only I Knew What it Was
The heart hates unfinished business.
“Now” is the operative word. Everything you put in your way is just a method of putting off the hour when you could actually be doing your dream. You don’t need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today.
Julianna Baggott
Not that children imprison me, but sometimes, I felt like a prisoner with a spoon. I could dig away, doing little bits of at a time, hoping I would see the light.
I thought I had depth before, but children mine that so much deeper. I have so much more love than I ever felt myself capable of...Being a mother brought me to a deeper level in my willingness to give to my characters and be aware of how much attention they needed.
Jack London
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Amy BloomI wouldn’t be the person I am if I weren’t a mother. I would be very different without children. I would still write, but not in the same way.
Eudora Welty
I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.
Rita Mae Brown
A writer’s life is not designed to reassure your mother.
Brenda Ueland
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.
Chinese proverb
Nothing is so full of victory as patience.
Maxwell Perkins
Just get it down on paper, and then we’ll see what to do about it.
Cyril Connolly
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
Agatha Christie
Write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you are writing, and aren’t writing particularly well.
Libba Bray
[Motherhood] is an ongoing revolution. Without it, I don’t think I would have gotten on the stick about making it my career, nor would I have understood the human condition as well. I would not have understood the fragility and resilience of that kind of extreme love. I wouldn’t have understood how you can love someone so much and want to duct tape them to a chair at the same time.
Oprah Winfrey
The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance—and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.
--Elizabeth McCracken
A would-be writer is supposed to have either a rich inner life of a rich outer one. I had neither. Still, I had to get material from someplace, and so I stole it, piecemeal, from my family.
Annie Dillard
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.
Samuel Beckett
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Julia Cameron
By replacing “No way!” with “Maybe”, we open the door to mystery and magic.
Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
