"According to legend, Honore de Balzac drank 50 cups of coffee a day to fuel his writing."

He also died of a heart attack at 51. 

(It was probably worth it, though.)

The headline quote was found here.

If she's Reading Great Gatsby or 50 Shades of Gray, your chances of getting laid are better

According to this helpful little article on Jezebel, women's likelihood of hooking up whilst traveling can be easily assessed by checking out the book in their lap. (Women do most of their reading while traveling, apparently.) The information was culled from a survey. How scientific or reliable the survey was is uncertain. According to its research, women who read "blockbusters" are your most likely candidates, i.e. a lady of... regressive, heteronormative proclivities, to paraphrase.  

Also, lumping women who read Gatsby with those reading 50 Shades seems rather unscientific. On the other hand, maybe they're both game just stylistically different. E.g., think of the possibilities of the woman reading Twilight (or better yet, the last one in the series whatever it's called––I could've googled it but, really, who cares?).

I'd avoid the Twilight reader.

Be a God, Create Something

"You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world."

More here.

Never a failure, always a lesson.

Papa Preach to Me

Write drunk, edit sober.

Ernest Hemingway

I think what he was trying to say was first find the freedom to dig, then use discipline to bury it well. Drunkenness can lead to all kinds of behavior which the artist should unashamedly indulge in for the work. In the work, mind you. As George Carlin has eloquently said, in a manner of speaking, drunkenness can be a positive but is best used under controlled conditions. 

(Of course, one can also indulge in drunkenness metaphorically.)

Indulge Your Crazy & Admit that You Can't Not Do It

I'm totally crazy, I know that. I don't say that to be a smartass, but I know that that's the very essence of what makes my work good. And I know my work is good. Not everybody likes it, that's fine. I don't do it for everybody. Or anybody. I do it because I can't not do it.

Maurice Sendak as quoted from 10 Things You Might Not Know About Maurice Sendak

Also:
Q: How do you write for children?
A: I really have never figured that out. So I decided to just ignore it.

I thought it was also interesting to note that Sendak's In the Night Kitchen is on the list of most frequently banned books, according to the ALA, which is one of the best before-bed picture books ever done, in the humble opinion of our house. When my daughter was of picture book age In the Night Kitchen was one of her favorites. Because of this she would've seen Sendak's rendering of a small boy's penis countless times. Still, I think she'll be all right.

The Fear of Feeling Fear Is What You Fear Most

Every day, we make a thousand little compromises, avoid opportunities, actions and people--all so that we can stay away from the emotion of fear.

Note that I didn't say, "so we can stay away from what we fear." No, that's something else entirely. Right now, most of us are avoiding the things that might merely trigger the emotion itself. That's how distasteful it is to us.

Seth Godin, marketing guru and purveyor of the concept that effective marketing is about creating something remarkable and authentic, the opposite of traditional advertising.

His blog, the "#1 ranked marketing blog in the world," can be found here.