Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" A ritual or tradition can be as simple as something you do every night, like read a story to a small child, or something you do weekly, such as go out for Chinese food. "

Elizabeth Berg

Food

Child

Story

Related Quotes:

" Never try to copy other writers, and never try to have a formula. It has to come from your heart and soul. "

" One of the great pleasures in writing 'The Dream Lover' was learning about some of the real people who populated George Sand's life. What a cast of characters! And what a pleasure to recreate them upon the page! "

" I find life a mix of humor and pathos, and all my books reflect that to one degree or another. "

" Ultimately, the less I know about what I'm doing, the better the work is. "

" As for my 'real life,' yes, I do have friends who are different from me, and I find it refreshing being around them. "

" I've always felt an overwhelming need to get out what was inside. The vehicle for me was words on paper - not speech, not art, not dance, not anything else. "

" I've been to Iowa many times before. You have to love Iowa, or you're not an American. "

" In writing a novel about George Sand, I hoped to present her as the talented, beguiling, complicated and occasionally infuriating woman I think she was, but I hope, too, that readers will enjoy the people she surrounded herself with. "

" Some people read an interesting or provocative newspaper article, and that's the end of that. A writer reads such an article, and her imagination gets fired up. Questions occur to her. She might feel an urge to finish the story that the article suggests. "

" Nurses don't get paid very much. It didn't take long to realize that I could make more as a writer. I loved nursing, but I loved writing more. "

" Ideas come from life: what happens in mine, what I see happening in others', mixed with a great deal of imagination. I might see a person in a grocery store and build a whole character and life out of what's in her basket. "

" No, I am not my mother. I am deeply, endlessly grateful for what she did and who she was, but I am a different kind of person. "

" You need a place to work that works for you, and you need people to understand that when you are writing, you are doing a rarefied type of brain surgery and therefore should not be subject to a million random interruptions. "

" Writing is, of course, a solitary occupation. But for many writers, myself included, it's through writing that we make certain vital connections. "

" I never was a big believer that you can teach writing per se. "

" When I look at my own work, I see love, loss, and loneliness. Part of it might be that I was an army brat. I moved around all the time. There was a sense of nothing being permanent. "

" I remember, as a child, wanting all the time to buy my parents presents. I stood around forlornly in fancy shops, unable to afford a single thing. "

" The process of writing and creating and answering that very unique call inside yourself has nothing to do with agents and sales and all that stuff. "

" If I'm on the road for Random House, I'm presenting a book with the hope people will buy it. "

" No, I never thought that I would be a writer. I had always been told I could write well, but it never occurred to me that I might make my living that way. "

Elizabeth Berg

Way

Thought

" I always wrote as a vehicle for expression but did not try writing for publication until my mid-thirties, at which time I started writing for magazines. I wrote essays and then short stories, then moved into novels. "

" I just cannot stand an unmade bed. "

" When I lived in Boston, I had an office that I rented because I found it wonderful to go away from my house to work: It was so quiet, and I couldn't go to the refrigerator or do the laundry. "

Elizabeth Berg

Work

Boston

" Really, my sacred place is my study where there are books that I love and things that people have given me. "

" When I write a book, I don't have an idea of what I'm doing. I just go where it leads. "

Elizabeth Berg

Where

Just

" I think writers are born, not made. "

" In this wide world, I don't think that there's just one person for any of us. I think we look until we find one that feels right, and oftentimes, it works out just fine. "

" I have always believed in helping people whose work I admire. "

" I love libraries, as anyone who has a brain does. "

" You should not pay too much attention to what anyone tells you, including me. It's very, very important to follow your own map. "