A Quote by Patrick Modiano

Writing is a strange and solitary activity. There are dispiriting times when you start working on the first few pages of a novel. Every day, you have the feeling you are on the wrong track. This creates a strong urge to go back and follow a different path. It is important not to give in to this urge but to keep going.

Patrick Modiano

Quote Topics

Activity Back Creates Day Different Different Path Every Every Day Feeling Few First Follow Give Go Going Important Keep Keep Going Novel Pages Path Solitary Start Strange Strong Times Track Urge Working Writing Wrong

Quote Author

Patrick Modiano
French - Novelist
Born: July 30, 1945

The urge to quit is strongest just before breakthroughs occur. Those are the times when it's most important to stay focused and committed. You will encounter the urge to quit many times. Get over it. Quitting is not an option; always be prepared to give it one more day.

Matthew Barnett

[...] I suppose this was the first time I had ever felt an urge not to be. Never an urge to die, far less an urge to put an end to myself - simply an urge not to be. This disgusting, hostile and unlovely world was not made for me, nor I for it. It was alien to me and I to it.

Stephen Fry

I don't like to think in terms of writing ten or twelve pages a day. Usually I'm writing a scene, and it's always with the idea, "I wonder what is going to happen." Or sometimes I write about something that affected me emotionally the day before and that I don't want to lose. I'm very unorganized at first; but finally it comes into a structure where consciously I'm working on a novel per se.

Robert Cormier

So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert. At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don’t act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present - present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness.

Eckhart Tolle

What if you let go of every bit of control and every urge that you have, right down to the most infinitesimal urge to control anything, anywhere, including anything that may be happening with you at this moment? If you were able to give up control absolutely, totally, and completely, then you would be a spiritually free being.

Adyashanti

A few years back, I had this urge to be on the go all the time. It's important to find a balance, though. Now my motto is, do the work, but recharge, too!

Ashley Roberts

If you paint for product, you have to follow the rules that keep you on the track of your expectation. You have to calculate, organize, plan every move. When you paint for process, you listen to the magic of inner voices, you follow the basic human urge to experiment with the new, the unknown, the mysterious, the hidden. Process is adventure; product happens only within the parameters designed.

Michele Cassou

This Civil Rights Act is a challenge to all of us to go to work in our communities and our states, in our homes and in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our beloved country. So tonight I urge every public official, every religious leader, every business and professional man, every working man, every housewife - I urge every American - to join in this effort to bring justice and hope to all our people, and to bring peace to our land.

Lyndon B. Johnson

If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course, you have to be strong mentally, also. But in the first place, you have to be strong physically. That is a very important thing. Physically and mentally you have to be strong.

Haruki Murakami

It's physical. If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course you have to be strong mentally, also. But in the first place you have to be strong physically. That is a very important thing. Physically and mentally you have to be strong.

Haruki Murakami

Often, instead of offering empathy, we have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

Some players tell me that since retiring they've had the urge to go somewhere every three days. To satisfy that urge, they may even jump in the car and drive around the block.

Lou Brock

Of course, the more you read, the more you learn, and ultimately there is more information than you can ever use. The difficulty is that as an outsider, you know you're too ignorant for your own good, and so the urge to keep researching and *never* start writing is pretty strong.

Paolo Bacigalupi

There is yet another illusion, that it is important to be respectable, to be loved and appreciated, to be important. Many say we have a natural urge to be loved and appreciated, to belong. That’s false. Drop this illusion and you will find happiness. We have a natural urge to be free, a natural urge to love, but not to be loved.