A Quote by Marion Zimmer Bradley

There's no "magic secret"; writing is like everything else; ten percent inspiration or talent, and ninety percent hard work. Persistence; keeping at it till you get there. As Agnes de Mille said, it means working every day—bored, tired, weary, or with a fever of a hundred and two.

Marion Zimmer Bradley

Quote Topics

Bored Day Else Every Every Day Everything Everything Else Fever Get Hard Hard Work Hundred Inspiration Keeping Like Magic Means Ninety Ninety Percent Percent Persistence Said Secret Talent Ten Till Tired Two Weary Work Working Writing

Quote Author

Marion Zimmer Bradley
American - Writer
June 3, 1930 - September 25, 1999

People often say that writing is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. This is nonsense, of course. It's pretty much one hundred percent caffeine.

Caprice Crane

Persistence isn't very glamorous. If genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, then as a culture we tend to lionize the one percent. We love its flash and dazzle. But great power lies in the other ninety-nine percent.

Susan Cain

The Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules - the first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.

Arthur Bloch

I think I've only spent about ten percent of my energies on writing. The other ninety percent went to keeping my head above water.

Katherine Anne Porter

If you're writing, you're a writer. If you're talking about it or thinking about it, I'm not so sure. Writing is ninety-eight percent work and two percent magic.

Barbara Kingsolver

Music is, by far, the best art. Nothing even comes close. It's so immediate and emotional. In writing, maybe ninety percent of it is the unconscious and ten percent is control. In music, I think it's probably more like ninety-nine percent the unconscious. It's just a beautiful thing happening through you. And so, too, is writing a great story.

T.C. Boyle

This is ten percent luck, Twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent power of will, Five percent pleasure, Fifty percent pain, and a hundred percent reason to remember the name

Mike Shinoda

Someone said to me, 'If fifty percent of the experts in Hollywood said you had no talent and should give up, what would you do?' My answer was then and still is, 'If a hundred percent told me that, all one hundred percent would be wrong.'

Marilyn Monroe

When your witnessing is ninety percent, your mind is reduced to ten percent. And when your witnessing is one hundred percent - total, absolute - the screen is empty, the film has disappeared. This is the state of meditation: when there are no thoughts, no feelings - nothing moves, everything stops. There is tremendous serenity. Out of this serenity, silence, peace, a new kind of experience arises, new flowers blossom.