Dorothea Brande

“Hold the picture of yourself as you long to be.”

“The 'genius' is the man who is in some way or other in contact with the unconscious.”

“The mind which is trained in resignation will be a flabby, inefficient instrument.”

“The subconscious is not a servant, but a rebellious and arbitrary collaborator.”

“The mind, to be any good, must be a wild thing.”

“My own experience is that the writer should write what he wants to write.”

“The artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.”

“The writer's way is rough and lonely, and who would choose it while there are vacancies in more gracious professions, such as, say, cleaning out ferryboats?”

“You have been deliberately taught to be cautious, prudent, and reasonable. All these are the enemies of the artist in you.”

“To live in the world of creation—to get into it and stay in it—to frequent it and be at home in it—is the problem of the writer’s life.”

“Resolve to be a master of your environment, not its slave.”

“The writer's life is a sacred trust.”

“Form a new habit. A new habit is a new character.”

“The imagination can be taught to be systematically creative.”

“A writer's first duty is to himself. Until he is satisfied, he does no good to any one else.”

“By acting as if you are a certain kind of person, you become that person.”

“Failure is the foundation of success, and the means by which it is achieved.”

“The trouble with most of us is that we stop trying in trying times.”

“The best way to learn to write is to write.”

“All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail.”