Andre Gid

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.

Amanda Gorman, "Hymn for the Hurting"

…

May our signed right to bear arms

Never blind our sight from shared harm

…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finish every day and be done with it. For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember.

Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born

We learn, often through painful self-discipline and self-cauterization, those qualities which are supposed to be "innate" in us: patience, self-sacrifice, the willingness to repeat endlessly the small, routine chores of socializing a human being.

Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams 1776

Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend.

Stella Adler, The Art of Acting

There is one rule to be learned. Life is not you. Life is outside you. If it is outside, you must go toward it. You must go toward a person, and if he or she backs off it's their fault. The essential thing to know is that life is in front of you. Go toward it.

Billy Wilder in Paris Review

When I was a writer at Paramount, the studio had a swarm of writers under contract—a hundred and four! They worked in the Writers Building, the Writers Annex, and the Writers Annex Annex. All of us were writing! We were not getting big salaries but we were writing. It was fun. We made a little money. Some like Ben Hecht made a lot of money. All the writers were required to hand in eleven pages every Thursday. Why on Thursday? Who knows? Why eleven pages? Who knows?

Orson Wells

It's only in your twenties and in your seventies and eighties that you do the greatest work. The enemy of society is the middle class, and the enemy of life is middle age.

Mary Oliver, "When Death Comes"

…When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

Ursula K. LeGuin

Babies eat books. But they spit out wads of them that can be taped back together; and they are only babies for a couple of years, while writers live for decades.