Holly Lisle Quotations

Don't talk about writing. Write. Don't show unfinished work to anyone. Don't show finished work to non-writers. Get your opinions, not from friends and family, but by sending your work out to editors. An endless stream of rejection slips means you need to learn more. So learn more.

I always wrote, you know, but it was just this thing I did; what I intended was to become a terribly famous artist, perhaps with a stopover as a singer.

I earned my writing stripes with a large man's shoebox overflowing with rejection slips... more than 100 before I got my first, 'Yes, we want this,' accompanied by a check.

I started writing with intent to publish on January 1st, 1985, when, as my New Year's resolution, I resolved to finish a book before I turned 25. It's one of only a few New Year's resolutions I remember keeping - I finished that one with a couple weeks to spare.

Writing is a puzzle you'll spend your lifetime unlocking. You will never know it all; you will never know enough. You can always be better, and figuring out how to be better is part of the thrill and joy of the job.

Writing, for all that it's harder than nursing ever was, is also more joyous and more fun and a lot less dangerous. And the major themes of my life have become the major themes of my writing, too - so it has all worked out pretty well.

I would rather be right and die than be wrong and kill.

I had come to discover that "safe" was an illusion, a pretense that adults wrapped around their children- and sometimes themselves- to make the world seem comfortable. I had discovered that under that thin cover of let's-pretend, monsters and nightmares lay, and that not all of them came from places like the moonroads or the nightling cities. Some of the monsters were people we knew. People we thought we could trust.

A voice speaks to each of us in the still silent places - a voice that tells us to stand, to have courage, to do what is right.

If you don't accept responsibility for your own actions then you are forever chained to a position of defense.

You must learn to face the fact, always, that you choose to do what you do, and that everything you do affects not only you but others.

Every writer has something to say, but those writers whose works endure have dared to say something about the things that frighten them, confuse them, challenge them, and occasionally delight them.

Guilt is a good friend, isn't it? It will stand at your back when every other friend has abandoned you, and in the face of all reason it will stay by your side, and even when you tell it, "I am moving on now," it will say, "I shall never leave you; never." If only I could find a lover as faithful as guilt.

The only place you will be accepted is the place you make for yourself.

This is writing. You cut out chunks of your own memories, rework them, bleed into them, breathe into the raw clay, and hope the creature lives.

The definition of a writing career, is write a book, write another book, write another book

If you have dreams you want to pursue, the time is now. There is no perfect time, and there is no better time. There is only the time you lose while you're making excuses.

Willful ignorance and endless laws become the replacement for self-education and self-restraint, because ignorance and laws are easy.

Adventures are only interesting once you've lived to see the end of them. Before that, they are nothing but fear, and being too cold or too hot or too wet or too hungry, and getting hurt.

I have never yet figured out what to do about good advice that you get, and that you know right away would help you, but that you cannot follow.

Anything designed to be inoffensive isn't worth your time -- life itself is pretty offensive, ending as it does with death.

Actions have consequences... first rule of life. And the second rule is this - you are the only one responsible for your own actions.

Courage is nothing more than taking one step more than you think you can.