“The risks associated with being a commercialized artist and embarking on a typical album release, like endless promotion and touring, have nearly killed me.”— Michael Angelakos, pitchfork.com
“Don't use women as a writing technique if you're not trying to actually understand or value them.”— Ari Eastman, facebook.com
“It's true: pain and suffering helps to create what we call art. given the choice I'd never choose this damned pain and suffering for myself but somehow it finds me as the royalties continue to roll on in.”— Charles Bukowski, amazon.com
“He tells me, ‘Don’t write about me.’ Automatically, I say, ‘Okay.’ Only later do I think about what this means. Only later do I realize how stifling this is. Never do I set out to hurt anyone. Never do I write to be vindictive. Still, I have a story. Am I not allowed to share that? Am I not allowed…”— Ari Eastman, thoughtcatalog.com
“Assume an editor pays a writer $100. Taking as a random decent example a $5 CPM, the piece would need 20,000 pageviews to make that $100. That doesn’t take into account the editor’s salary, the salaries of any developers, or any other costs beyond getting letters into a Word document. (In particular…”— Noah Davis, theawl.com
“I’ve got plenty of writer friends who’ve gotten bigger and better reviews. And then there are folks who would likely look at me and say I was ahead of them. But the truth is the sun shines on all of us and the rain falls on all of us and we all die, so let’s just skip over the part where you stew fo…”— Sara Benincasa, medium.com
“Let’s not dance around the fact that a lot of dreams aren’t sacred, beautiful things. They are bullshit. The person who claims to want to be a writer, but doesn’t do any writing. The person who wants to be a singer but actually just wants to be famous. The person who sees other people making million…”— Ryan Holiday, thoughtcatalog.com
“Fuck my dreams of hearing ‘It’s perfect’ on the first try. I need to hear ‘It can be a lot better.”— Ryan Holiday, thoughtcatalog.com
“The genius in Bukowski's work was not in overcoming unbelievable odds or developing himself into a shining literary light. It was the opposite. It was his simple ability to be completely, unflinchingly honest with himself -- especially the worst parts of himself -- and to share his failings without…”— Mark Manson, amazon.com
“One more time: if you want to be a novelist, you need to know how to sell books, regardless of the mode with which you publish your work.”— Shaunta Grimes, medium.com
“sifting through the madness for The Word, the line, the way, hoping for a check from somewhere, dreaming of a letter from a great editor, 'Chinaski, you don't know how long we've been waiting for you!' no chance at all.”— Charles Bukowski, amazon.com
“Write when you want or when you can or when you need to. If you write, on any schedule, you’re a writer. That’s it.”— Roxane Gay, roxanegay.tumblr.com
“When I was first starting out as a writer it was only the love of writing that kept me going. Writing is lonely but writing also kept me company. The characters I created kept me company. Wanting to tell new stories or offer my perspective on this world we live in motivated me. Wanting to be seen an…”— Roxane Gay, roxanegay.tumblr.com
“Writing was the solution to every problem—financial, emotional, intellectual.”— ariel levy, amazon.com
“I will not allow someone to tell me I can’t be a writer because I don’t have enough followers on Instagram.”— Shani Silver, artplusmarketing.com
“I no longer know the author of this book, for simply stopping long enough and writing it down was where I changed from a boy with his eyes squeezed shut to a man with his eyes wide open so that the sunlight might reach my heart despite all the darkness.”— Ryan Adams, amazon.com
“Once in a life, if a person chooses to go through these things, then maybe the act of writing them down could be a gift, so that others might know that should they suffer their romances or their love of things, they're not alone.”— Ryan Adams, amazon.com
“Write like you talk. I personally like that, and that’s why I think everyone has a book in them, because everyone has had things happen to them. Don’t be fancy if that’s not who you are. Don’t worry about that. I just put in my inner monologue in and then I’d just sort of keep it and it kind of work…”— Cat Marnell, hellogiggles.com