Quotation – June 29, 2017

Storyteller’s Creed

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
That dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.

Robert Fulghum: All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten

Quotation #2 – June 28, 2017

There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, in you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.

Mirabel Osler

ALIEN INNKEEPER

Quotation – June 28, 2017

Two questions form the foundation of all novels: “What if?” and “What next?”
(A third question, “What now?”, is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it’s more of a cry than a quesition.
Every novel begins with the speculative question, What is ‘X’ happened? That’s how you start.

Tom Clancy

AN ALIEN PERSPECTIVE

Quotation #2 – June 27, 2017

Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don’t start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a 
great deal of repetition can by avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

William Safire, “Great Rules of Writing”

ALIEN INNKEEPER

Quotation – June 27, 2017

The adult with a capacity for true maturity is one who has grown out of childhood without losing childhood’s best traits. He has retained the basic emotional strengths of infancy, the stubborn autonomy of totterhood, the capacity for wonder and pleasure and playfulness of the preschool years, the capacity for affiliation and the intellectual curiosity of the school years, the idealism and passion of adolescence. He has incorporated these into a new pattern of development dominated by adult stability, wisdom, knowledge, sensitivity to other people, responsibility, strength, and purposiveness.

Personhood (Leo Buscaglia)

KAIKU

Quotation – June 26, 2017

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Mark Twain

AN ALIEN PERSPECTIVE

Quotation – June 24, 2017

We, and I think I’m speaking for many writers, don’t know what it is that sometimes comes to make our books alive. All we can do is to write dutifully and day after day, every day, giving our work the very best of what we are capable. I don’t think that we can consciously put the magic in; it doesn’t work that way. When the magic comes, it’s a gift.

Madeleine L’Engle

 

Peony

Quotation – June 22, 2017

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.

Samuel Johnson

ALIEN INNKEEPER

Quotation #2 – June 21, 2017

Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention, which are, in my opinion, more interesting than the inventions themselves.

Leibnitz

KAIKU

Quotation – June 21, 2017

The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.

Albert Einstein

AN ALIEN PERSPECTIVE