![I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O' Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Don't worry about doing it well yet, though. Just get it down.](/assets/img/quote-photos/i-dont-know-where-to-start-one-writing-student-will-wail-start-with-your-ch.jpg)
Related Quotes
memories book writing
Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention; there are many books that owe their success to two things; good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them Charles Caleb Colton
memories appreciate literature
Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.
memories mind firsts
Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.
memories book reader
Many books owe their success to the good memories of their authors and the bad memories of their readers.
memories teaching should-have
All preceptors should have that kind of genius described by Tacitus, "equal to their business, but not above it;" a patient industry, with competent erudition; a mind depending more on its correctness than its originality, and on its memory rather than on its invention.
memories green lord
Lord, keep my memory green. Charles Dickens
memories husband men
I revere the memory of Mr. F. as an estimable man and most indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle; it was not ecstasy but it was comfort.
memories dictator amnesia
Where would dictators be without our compliant amnesia? Make the collective lose its memory, you can conceal anything. Charles Stross
memories liberty might
If I forget, then it might as well never have happened. Memory is liberty.
writing hair fire
Prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, stirring the fire, looking out the window, teasing my hair, sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and tearing it up...
writing numbers gold
Genius, in one respect, is like gold; numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.
writing language nonsense
It is curious that some learned dunces, because they can write nonsense in languages that are dead, should despise those that talk sense in languages that are living.
writing men profound
He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men's heads.
writing faces privacy
The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.
writing men three
There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it.
writing should-have fire
We should have a glorious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire.
writing self hints
The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author's that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.
writing two style
When I meet with any persons who write obscurely or converse confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things; first, that such persons do not understand themselves; and secondly, that they are not worthy of being understood by others.
worry energy-of-the-universe eternal
Basically, there is simply nothing to worry about, because you yourself are the eternal energy of the universe. Alan Watts
worry people way
It used to worry me what people said about me. I'm learning not to worry as much. Sometimes you feel critics are wrong all the time, but I don 't take objection to it, because that's the way it goes. They can be wrong, they can be right. They can be cruel, they can be kind. Al Pacino
worry disorder severe
One of the things is that in times of severe disorder, you can't worry about the dead, only the living. Darren Shan
worry weight
He had kept his head, kept his health and his strength, bearing up under a weight of work and worry that only a few could have carried. David McCullough
worry tennis doe
No one is friends with Hewitt and he does not worry me at all. David Nalbandian
worry fit fashionable
Even if it doesn't fit the woman, like, let's say a very short skirt, and the woman doesn't have the legs or the height to wear the skirt, but she has to wear it because it's fashionable. Don't do it! If it doesn't look good on you, don't worry about it. Carolina Herrera
worry
Don't worry about things you cannot alter Catherine the Great
worry recognizing
I never, ever worry about anybody recognizing me. Charlie Bewley
worry president cabinets
Ron Paul is not going to be president, so we don't have to worry about who's going to be in his cabinet. Charles Krauthammer