“I was an art dealer for a number of years, for a friend, and after that I was blogging for fun on the side. I was co-writing a blog with a friend who lived on the West Coast and learning how to write by writing in public — which, actually, I sort of take for granted now. That was a new thing, then.…”— Choire Sicha, fashionista.com
“Ultimately what remains is a story. In the end, it's the only thing any of us really owns.”— Carole Radziwill, amazon.com
“And now, I’ve spent a decent amount of time writing this piece and saying “this sucks” the whole time but now it’s finished and I wrote a piece so even if it sucks, I created something, which has eased the crankiness I felt earlier.”— Kim Quindlen, thoughtcatalog.com
“If I’m not inspired to write, I don’t. Whether it’s me as a singer or a dancer or a writer or a painter or a filmmaker or on Instagram or a mixtape, everything I do is coming out of a real need. I think Joni Mitchell is the one who said that singing, laughing, and crying come up out of the same need…”— Erykah Badu, vulture.com
“I just keep producing high-quality work. That’s why I have 8,202 followers.”— Heather Havrilesky, theawl.com
“Always be super-polite and light-hearted with your editors, and never give them any indication that you’ve been waiting for a check for so long and your credit card balances are getting so high that your pulse starts racing every time you think about it, so much so that you’ve started to soothe your…”— Heather Havrilesky, theawl.com
““HEY IS THERE A CHECK ON THE WAY FINALLY? LOL! THIS BIG GUY WITH A BASEBALL BAT AT MY FRONT DOOR WANTS TO KNOW! OMG MY KNEES! XXXOOO””— Heather Havrilesky, theawl.com
“See how I was thinking about a smell? That’s how you know I’m a real artist and not some fucking hack who writes light verse for The New Yorker.”— Heather Havrilesky, theawl.com
“After Choire took over editing, I turned in 5,000 words of digressive psychobabble mixed with Kanye West lyrics, and his only feedback was “omg are you on Adderall?!?!””— Heather Havrilesky, thecut.com
“It is good to know how to go in hard and ask for the world. But every now and then, it’s also good to know when to go in soft and ask for not very much at all.”— Heather Havrilesky, thecut.com
“Ed's not a guy who goes, "What do you think?" Ed's in his own thing and he's a star athlete.”— John Mayer, rollingstone.com
“I realized not long ago that I'm done debating my own merits: "No, I am very good.”— John Mayer, rollingstone.com
“You'd think people would be wary of spilling to a writer. You'd think they'd know that we're essentially birds of carrion, picking over the corpses of dead affairs and forgotten arguments to recycle them into our work.”— Ruth Ware, amazon.com
“I just wrote the truth, and it made me feel better. So I wrote more. I felt even better. After two years of telling the truth on the page, as I know it, I've written an entire book and it helped reshape my view on life, my work, my body, my family, and, most importantly, myself.”— Gabourey Sidibe, amazon.com
“Throughout my 20s and most of my 30s, I was convinced I was never going to make it as a writer.”— Roxane Gay, nytimes.com
“I’m not a school counselor. I’m not a therapist. I only have as many hours in a day as anyone else. I edit this publication and I write because I need to, but if I looked at everything and responded to even one person, then I would have to respond to everyone and the work wouldn’t happen. A couple o…”— Tavi Gevinson, thecut.com
“I really love working from home and then emerging into the world at night. I don’t get ready until it’s 6 p.m. and I’m on my way to meet someone.”— Tavi Gevinson, thecut.com
“It’s like this dog in Japan. The dog had an owner. And the owner would go to the train every day. And the dog would follow the owner to the train and then be there at the exact time the owner came back from work off the train. The dog would be waiting on the train platform. Then one day the owner di…”— John Mayer, youtube.com