Quotes about cats from great writers

‘Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.’

– Robertson Davies

‘When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.’

– Mark Twain

‘I am glad you have a Cat, but I do not believe it is so remarkable a cat as My Cat.’

– T. S. Eliot (letter to his godson, 1931)

‘Little one, I would like to see anyone — prophet, king or God — persuade a thousand cats to do anything at the same time.’

– Neil Gaiman

‘When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not more of a pastime to her than she is to me?’

– Montaigne

‘If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.’

– Doris Lessing

‘How we behave toward cats here below determines our place in heaven.’

– Robert Heinlein

‘A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.’

– Ernest Hemingway

‘Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.’

– Terry Pratchett

‘I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.’

– Jean Cocteau

‘Cats were the gangsters of the animal world, living outside the law and often dying there. There were a great many of them who never grew old by the fire.’

– Stephen King

‘Holding up my, purring cat to the moon, I sighed.’

– Jack Kerouac

‘I think all cats are wild. They only act tame if there’s a saucer of milk in it for them.’

– Douglas Adams

‘Books. Cats. Life is good.’

– Edward Gorey

‘The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.’

– William S. Burroughs

‘I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.’

– Edgar Allan Poe

‘There are no ordinary cats.’

– Colette

‘Outside, the north wind, coming and passing, swelling and dying, lifts the frozen sand drives it a-rattle against the lidless windows and we may dear sit stroking the cat stroking the cat and smiling sleepily, prrrr.’

– William Carlos Williams

‘I write so much because my cat sits on my lap. She purrs so I don’t want to get up. She’s so much more calming than my husband.’

– Joyce Carol Oates

Source: buzzfeed, interestingliterature

21 Harsh But Eye-Opening Writing Tips From Great Authors

By CODY DELISTRATY

A lot of people think they can write or paint or draw or sing or make movies or what-have-you, but having an artistic temperament doth not make one an artist.

Even the great writers of our time have tried and failed and failed some more. Vladimir Nabokov received a harsh rejection letter from Knopf upon submitting Lolita, which would later go on to sell fifty million copies. Sylvia Plath’s first rejection letter for The Bell Jar read, “There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice.” Gertrude Stein received a cruel rejection letter that mocked her style. Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way earned him a sprawling rejection letter regarding the reasons he should simply give up writing all together. Tim Burton’s first illustrated book, The Giant Zlig, got the thumbs down from Walt Disney Productions, and even Jack Kerouac’s perennial On the Road received a particularly blunt rejection letter that simply read, “I don’t dig this one at all.”

So even if you’re an utterly fantastic writer who will be remembered for decades forthcoming, you’ll still most likely receive a large dollop of criticism, rejection, and perhaps even mockery before you get there. Having been through it all these great writers offer some writing tips without pulling punches. After all, if a publishing house is going to tear into your manuscript you might as well be prepared.

1. The first draft of everything is shit. -Ernest Hemingway

2. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass. -David Ogilvy

3. If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy. – Dorothy Parker

4. Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home. -Paul Theroux

5. I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide. — Harper Lee

6. You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. ― Jack London

7. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. — George Orwell

8. There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. ― W. Somerset Maugham

9. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time — or the tools — to write. Simple as that. – Stephen King

10. Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. – Neil Gaiman

11. Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die. – Anne Enright

12. If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do. – William Zinsser

13. Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college. – Kurt Vonnegut

14. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. – Ernest Hemingway

15. Write drunk, edit sober. – Ernest Hemingway

16. Get through a draft as quickly as possible. Hard to know the shape of the thing until you have a draft. Literally, when I wrote the last page of my first draft of Lincoln’s Melancholy I thought, Oh, shit, now I get the shape of this. But I had wasted years, literally years, writing and re-writing the first third to first half. The old writer’s rule applies: Have the courage to write badly. – Joshua Wolf Shenk

17. Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. – Mark Twain

18. Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that — but you are the only you. ― Neil Gaiman

19. Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. – Oscar Wilde

20. You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ― Ray Bradbury

21. Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously. – Lev Grossman

Caricature by: as tagged, Luc Devroye, Vladymyr Lukash, Alfred Bryan via Keith Higginbotham

50 Iconic Writers Who Were Repeatedly Rejected

 

1. Dr. Seuss: Here you’ll find a list of all the books that Dr. Seuss’ publisher rejected.

2. William Golding: William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was rejected 20 times before becoming published.

3. James Joyce: James Joyce’s Ulysses was judged obscene and rejected by several publishers.

4. Isaac Asimov: Several of Asimov’s stories were rejected, never sold, or eventually lost.

5. John le Carre: John le Carre’s first novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, was passed along because le Carre “hasn’t got any future.”

6. Jasper Fforde: Jasper Fforde racked up 76 rejections before getting The Eyre Affair published.

7. William Saroyan: William Saroyan received an astonishing 7,000 rejection slips before selling his first short story.

8. Jack Kerouac: Some of Kerouac’s work was rejected as pornographic.

9. Joseph Heller: Joseph Heller wrote a story as a teenager that was rejected by the New York Daily News.

10. Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows was not intended to be published, and was rejected in America before appearing in England.

11. James Baldwin: James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room was called “hopelessly bad.”

12. Ursula K. Le Guin: An editor told Ursula K. Le Guin that The Left Hand of Darkness was “endlessly complicated.”

13. Pearl S. Buck: Pearl Buck’s first novel, East Wind: West Wind received rejections from all but one publisher in New York.

14. Louisa May Alcott: Louisa May Alcott was told to stick to teaching.

15. Isaac Bashevis Singer: Before winning the Nobel Prize, Isaac Bashevis Singer was rejected by publishers.

16. Agatha Christie: Agatha Christie had to wait four years for her first book to be published.

17. Tony Hillerman: Tony Hillerman was told to “get rid of the Indian stuff.”

18. Zane Grey: Zane Grey self-published his first book after dozens of rejections.

19. Marcel Proust: Marcel Proust was rejected so much he decided to pay for publication himself.

20. Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen: Chicken Soup for the Soul received 134 rejections.

21. William Faulkner: William Faulkner’s book, Sanctuary, was called unpublishable.

22. Patrick Dennis: Auntie Mame got 17 rejections.

23. Meg Cabot: The bestselling author of The Princess Diaries keeps a mail bag of rejection letters.

24. Richard Bach: 18 publishers thought a book about a seagull was ridiculous before Jonathan Livingston Seagull was picked up.

25. Beatrix Potter: The Tale of Peter Rabbit had to be published by Potter herself.

26. John Grisham: John Grisham’s A Time to Kill was rejected by 16 publishers before finding an agent who eventually rejected him as well.

27. Shannon Hale: Shannon Hale was rejected and revised a number of times before Bloomsbury published The Goose Girl.

28. Richard Hooker: The book that inspired the film and TV show M*A*S*H* was denied by 21 publishers.

29. Jorge Luis Borges: It’s a good thing not everyone thought Mr. Borges’ work was “utterly untranslatable.”

30. Thor Heyerdahl: Several publishers thought Kon-Tiki was not interesting enough.

31. Vladmir Nabokov: Lolita was rejected by 5 publishers in fear of prosecution for obscenity before being published in Paris.

32. Laurence Peter: Laurence Peter had 22 rejections before finding success with The Peter Principles.

33. D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers faced rejection, and D.H. Lawrence didn’t take it easily.

34. Richard Doddridge Blackmore: This much-repeated story was turned down 18 times before getting published.

35. Sylvia Plath: Sylvia Plath had several rejected poem titles.

36. Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance faced an amazing 121 rejections before becoming beloved by millions of readers.

37. James Patterson: Patterson was rejected by more than a dozen publishers before an agent he found in a newspaper article sold it.

38. Gertrude Stein: Gertrude Stein submitted poems for 22 years before having one accepted.

39. E.E. Cummings: E.E. Cummings named the 14 publishers who rejected No Thanks in the book itself.

40. Judy Blume: Judy Blum received nothing but rejections for two years and can’t look at Highlights without wincing.

41. Irving Stone: Irving Stone’s Lust for Life was rejected by 16 different editors.

42. Madeline L’Engle: Madeline L’Engle’s masterpiece A Wrinkle in Time faced rejection 26 times before willing the Newberry Medal.

43. Rudyard Kipling: In one rejection letter, Mr. Kipling was told he doesn’t know how to use the English language.

44. J.K. Rowling: J.K. Rowling submitted Harry Potter to 12 publishing houses, all of which rejected it.

45. Frank Herbert: Before reaching print, Frank Herbert’s Dune was rejected 20 times.

46. Stephen King: Stephen King filed away his first full length novel The Long Walk after it was rejected.

47. Richard Adams: Richard Adams’s two daughters encouraged him to publish Watership Down as a book, but 13 publishers didn’t agree.

48. Anne Frank: One of the most famous people to live in an attic, Anne Frank’s diary had 15 rejections.

49. Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind was faced rejection 38 times.

50. Alex Haley: The Roots author wrote every day for 8 years before finding success.

Source: HERE

55 Famous Writers – What they did before they wrote

The day jobs of famous authors.

1. Anne Rice was a waitress, cook and insurance claims examiner.
2. Charles Dickens worked in a shoe-polish factory.
3. China Miéville lived in Egypt in 1990, teaching English for a year.
4. Dan Brown was a high school English teacher.
5. Dean Koontz was an English teacher.
6. Don DeLillo was a parking attendant. It was so boring that he became an avid reader, which led him to pursue a career in writing.
7. Douglas Adams worked as a hospital porter, barn builder, chicken shed cleaner, a hotel security guard and a bodyguard.
8. E.E. Cummings worked as an essayist and portrait artist for ‘Vanity Fair’ magazine.
9. Franz Kafka was the Chief Legal Secretary of the Workmen’s Accident Insurance Institute.
10. George Orwell was an officer of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.
11. H.G. Wells became an apprentice to a draper at the age of fourteen.
12. Harper Lee was a reservation clerk at Eastern Airlines.
13. Haruki Murakami worked in a record store during college, and owned a coffee house and jazz bar in Tokyo called the Peter Cat.
14. Henry Fielding was a magistrate.
15. Herman Melville was employed as a cabin boy on a cruise liner.
16. Hilary Mantel was a social worker.
17. Ian Rankin was a grape-picker, swineherd, taxman, alcohol researcher, hi-fi journalist, college secretary and punk musician.
18. J.D. Salinger was the entertainment director on a Swedish luxury liner.

19. J.K. Rowling worked as a secretary and also as a teacher.
20. Jack Kerouac was a gas station attendant, cotton picker, night guard, railroad brakeman, dishwasher, construction worker, and a deckhand.
21. Jack London worked at a cannery, then became an oyster pirate.
22. James Joyce sang and played piano.
23. James Patterson worked as a junior copywriter at J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. He later became the CEO.
24. Jeanette Winterson was an ice cream truck driver and a make-up artist at a funeral parlour.
25. Jeffery Deaver was a lawyer.
26. John Grisham worked at a nursery watering bushes, then as a plumber, before becoming a lawyer.
27. John Steinbeck was a tour guide at a fish hatchery.
28. Jorge Luis Borges worked as an assistant in the Buenos Aires Municipal Library.
29. Joseph Conrad was involved in gunrunning and political conspiracy.
30. Joseph Heller was a blacksmith’s apprentice, messenger boy, and file clerk.
31. Ken Kesey was a voluntary participant in CIA psych tests.
32. Kurt Vonnegut was the manager of a Saab dealership, worked in public relations for General Electric, and was a volunteer fire fighter.
33. Lee Child was as a television director with a British TV network.
34. Margaret Atwood worked as a counter girl in a coffee shop in Toronto.
35. Mark Twain was a steamboat pilot.
36. Mary Higgins Clark was a secretary, a model, and a stewardess.
37. Michael Crichton was a medical doctor.

38. Neil Gaiman was a journalist, writing articles for British newspapers and magazines.
39. Nicholas Sparks was a real estate appraiser, sold dental products by phone, and started his own manufacturing business.
40. P.D. James worked for the National Health Service and the Civil Service.
41. Pat Conroy taught English in Beaufort, South Carolina.
42. Paulo Coelho worked as a songwriter, an actor, a journalist, and theatre director.

43. Philip Pullman was a teacher.
44. Raymond Carver worked at a sawmill, as a janitor, delivery man and again at the sawmill to support his family while building his career.
45. Roald Dahl worked for the Shell Oil Company of East Africa until World War II. He then served in the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot.
46. Robert Frost was a newspaper boy, his mother’s teaching assistant, and a light-bulb-filament replacer in a factory.
47. Stephen King was a high school janitor

48. Stephenie Meyer was a receptionist in a property company.
49. Sylvia Plath worked as a receptionist at a psychiatric hospital.
50. T.S. Eliot worked at the Colonial and Foreign Accounts desk for Lloyd’s Bank of London
51. Tess Gerritsen was a medical doctor.
52. Tom Wolfe was a reporter.
53. Vladimir Nabokov was an entomologist.
54. William Faulkner was a mail man.
55. William S. Burroughs was an exterminator.

by: Amanda Patterson @ Writers Write

pictures credit: procaricature.com, Michael Cavna, beattie’s book blog, mirror