Good Words, Right Now
From ancient philosophers to modern novelists — the writers who shaped how we see the world, in their own words.
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
Samuel Johnson
Poet, critic & lexicographer — 18th century England
You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
Marcus Aurelius
Roman Emperor & Stoic philosopher, 2nd century AD
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
Jane Austen
Novelist of manners & social satire, 19th century England
There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate — but a book comes close.
Charles Dickens
Victorian novelist & social critic, 19th century England
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.
Virginia Woolf
Modernist novelist & essayist, early 20th century England
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
Ernest Hemingway
Nobel laureate, master of spare prose, 20th century America
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
Rumi
Persian poet & Sufi mystic, 13th century Persia
If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.
Toni Morrison
Nobel laureate, chronicler of the Black American experience
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
Franz Kafka
Czech novelist of alienation and absurdity, early 20th century
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
Maya Angelou
Poet, memoirist & civil rights activist, 20th century America
Even his griefs are a joy long after to one that remembers all that he wrought and endured.
Homer
Ancient Greek epic poet, author of the Iliad and Odyssey
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin
Novelist, essayist & voice of moral clarity, 20th century America
The creative adult is the child who survived.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Science fiction & fantasy visionary, 20th–21st century America
Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.
Langston Hughes
Poet & leader of the Harlem Renaissance, 20th century America
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
Zora Neale Hurston
Novelist, folklorist & Harlem Renaissance luminary, 20th century America
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
Alice Walker
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, author of The Color Purple
Let Their Words Inspire Yours
Every great author was once a writer staring at a blank page. Your story deserves to be told.