Donald Miller Quotes

I think when you're writing from your own life, it's hard because you realize that people have their own assessment of how they look, and they don't know how you will describe them.

You're who you think you are, even if you never admit it to yourself or to anyone else. You may be in the worst position to judge, but you're in the best position to know.

Write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?

I have never had time for the idea of searching. Whenever I wanted to express something, I did so without thinking of the past or the future.

In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won't get mixed up. It was the best advice Francie every got.

I've always been the audience that I wanted to reach, so I write for myself.

I don't worry about being exposed. When I'm writing about myself I think about myself as a character. There is a ton of stuff going on in my life that I don't write about. If I need to write that stuff down, I write about myself in my diary.

I think that's foolishness on the part of the playwright to write about himself. People don't know anything about themselves.

It means abandoning being a poet, abandoning your careerism, abandoning even the idea of writing any poetry, really abandoning, giving up as hopeless - abandoning the possibility of really expressing yourself to the nations of the world. Abandoning the idea of being a prophet with honor and dignity, and abandoning the glory of poetry and just settling down in the muck of your own mindYou really have to make a resolution to write for yourself, in the sense of not writing to impress yourself, but just writing what your self is saying.

A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue.

I write for myself, and perhaps for half a dozen friends. And that should be enough. And that might improve the quality of my writing. But if I were writing for thousands of people, then I would write what might please them. And as I know nothing about them, and maybe I'd have a rather low opinion of them, I don't think that would do any good to my work.

I'm interested in trying to explore what I think is the truth at a given time in my life, and part of the process of being honest is - in my mind - talking about the idea that you're watching a movie.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

I'm just not that comfortable writing so much about myself.

One of the key elements is the ability to be honest with yourself.

For me, writing is a way of thinking. I write in a journal a lot. I'm a very impatient person, so writing and meditation allow me to slow down and watch my mind; they are containers that keep me in place, hold me still.

Writing is a really good first step toward that goal of knowing yourself.

One of my problems is to find the self.

I'm sick of being self-referential. I don't want to do any more songs that can be accused of being personal.

One of the commitments I made to myself when I decided to write a book was to be brutally honest, particularly about myself.

If we are not regularly deeply embarrassed by who we are, the journey to self-knowledge hasn’t begun.

When you write, you don't really think of how honest you are being - it's only when you record that you understand how much of yourself you're giving.

I just couldn't keep on trying to please people. It was hindering my creative output, and I had to be honest with myself.

Writing for other people is easier than writing for myself - it's not as personal.

The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe.