Patricia MacLachlan Quotes

The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax.

When I write, I make discoveries about my feelings.

Writing has got to be an act of discovery....I write to find out what I'm thinking about.

Most writers write to say something about other people - and it doesn't last. Good writers write to find out about themselves - and it lasts forever.

Write. Write every day. Write honestly. Write something that doesn’t exist, and you wish did. Read. Learn. Study. Watch people. Listen to what they say, listen to how they say it and listen to what they do not say. Surprise yourself. Scare yourself.

I have always written only for myself - to clarify things, to clarify things with myself, to understand in an inner way what is actually happening.

You write to please yourself, you write to move yourself, to engage yourself in the asking of questions that are important to you.

I'm not really on a mission to tell anybody anything. I'd rather be figured out.

If I can write it, I can cope. And I've been writing many books, but in every book, I try to explore something in my own soul that I need to solve, I need to understand.

I began working quite young, writing, growing, maturing, always striving to top myself - to make people laugh hard at things they know and believe deep in their hearts to be true.

At the typewriter you find out who you are.

If you're not doing it for the right reasons, then you'd be dumb to be making documentaries.

I say it's easier to write for other people than write for myself.

You can spend time self-identifying and figuring out what you are on that, but at some point, you just want to be who you are and not walk around telling people.

The positive thing about writing is that you connect with yourself in the deepest way. You get a chance to know who you are, to know what you think. You begin to have a relationship with your mind.

What’s writing really about? It’s about trying to take fuller possession of the reality of your life.

In the writing, I'm just trying to go deeper, emotionally, and learn more about myself and reveal more and find a way to connect with people in new ways.

I think each of us can, through our writing, discover our super power

People say, "John, what's your personal growth?" And ask "How do you grow?" And I tell them. I thought, "Why do I keep telling them, why don't I just write a book on what I call personal growth?" And that's what this [Today Matters] book is.

I write what I write and I honestly don't care if it gets on or not. I'm writing to see if I can find out some of what I think about any number of situations. I work it out in the writing.

I think to the degree writers are serious, there is a greater tendency for them to write to themselves, because they're trying to compose their own thoughts. They are trying to find out what is in their minds, which is the great mystery. Finding out who you are, what is in your head, and what kind of companion you are to yourself in the course of life. I do think people have very profound lives of which they say virtually nothing.

It's been months since I last wrote. I've lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I've felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven't existed. I've been someone else. I've lived without thinking.

Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. It is no wonder if we sometimes tend to take ourselves perhaps a bit too seriously.

I write to discover what I think.

I am learning to see. I don't know why it is, but everything enters me more deeply and doesn't stop where it once used to. I have an interior that I never knew of... What's the use of telling someone that I am changing? If I'm changing, I am no longer who I was; and if I am something else, it's obvious that I have no acquaintances. And I can't possibly write to strangers.