A Quote by Arthur Quiller-Couch

Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it - whole-heartedly - and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.

Arthur Quiller-Couch

Quote Topics

Before Delete Feel Fine Impulse Manuscript Murder Obey Piece Press Sending Whenever Whole Writing Your

Quote Author

Arthur Quiller-Couch
English - Novelist
November 21, 1863 - May 12, 1944

If you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: 'Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it - whole-heartedly - and delete it before sending your manuscript to press.'

Arthur Quiller-Couch

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.

Stephen King

Murder your darlings.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Don't wait for success, but for the respect and interest of those who read you. At the start it could be a classmate, someone who shares your interests. Before sending off the manuscript for a novel to a publishing house, it would be a good idea to try writing short stories, and publishing them in a local magazine.

Dacia Maraini

When temptation comes, you can invent a delete key in your mind- perhaps the words from a favorite hymn. Your mind is in charge; your body is the instrument of your mind. When some unworthy thought pushes into your mind, replace it with your delete key. Worthy music is powerful and can help you control your thoughts.

Boyd K. Packer

Put down your cell phones, put everything away, and feel your blood pulsing in you, feel your creative impulse, feel your own spirit, your heart, your mind. Feel the joy of being alive and free.

Patti Smith

Obey your head. Obey your heart. Obey your gut. In fact, obey everything except commands.

Matt Haig

I feel that all you can do is give it your absolute best with whatever gifts the universe has given you. And if you make it in some way that other people can recognize, that's fine. But even if you don't quote-unquote make it, you're fine, if you've given it your whole heart and soul. You're totally in sync with your purpose and with the universe. And that's fine.

Alice Walker

What I know is you can't go back. You can't press delete and re-key your life.

Julie Anne Peters

Here's the acid test for appropriateness: Pretend that someone near and dear to you is witnessing what you are writing or sending, or knows what you are thinking about sending. If, say, your partner saw this behavior, how would he or she feel? That you are asking yourself this question could mean that you shouldn't be doing it!

Drew Pinsky

In writing, you must kill all your darlings.

William Faulkner

Give your heart to the trade you have learnt, and draw refreshment from it. Let the rest of your days be spent as one who has whole-heartedly committed his all to the gods and is thenceforth no man's master or slave.

Marcus Aurelius

Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.

Bertrand Russell

As far as a glass ceiling, I feel that all you can do is give it your absolute best with whatever gifts the universe has given you. And if you make it in some way that other people can recognize, that's fine. But even if you don't quote-unquote make it, you're fine if you've given it your whole heart and soul.

Alice Walker

Are you sure?" A brow arched up. "Because I'm here at your service and taking your jeans off is something I feel I'd be exceptionally wonderful at.