Quote

Finish. The difference between being a writer and being a person of talent is the discipline it takes to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and finish. Don't talk about doing it. Do it. Finish.

E. L. Konigsburg

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

E. L. Konigsburg
Age: 83 †
Born: 1930
Born: February 10
Died: 2013
Died: April 19
Novelist
Writer
Manhattan borough
New York City
Elaine Lobl Konigsburg
E.L. Konigsburg
Persons
Finish
Person
Discipline
Writing
Difference
Seat
Writer
Chair
Talent
Apply
Differences
Chairs
Takes
Seats
Talk
Pants

More quotes by E. L. Konigsburg

Image
They are saying that if life has a structure, a staff, a sensible scaffold, we hang our nonsense on it. And they are saying that broken parts add color and music to the staff of life.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
Silence does for thinking what a suspension bridge does for space -- it makes connections.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
Ninety percent of who you are is invisible. - Mrs. Zender
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
I'm not sure that love and like aren't like cats and dogs: One can't grow up to be the other, but they can be taught to live under the same roof.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
I don't think there is any feeling I like more than the one that someone is glad to see me. —Connor Kane
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
It often takes more courage to be a passenger than a driver.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
I believe in courtesy. It is the way we avoid hurting people's feelings. She thought that maybe, just maybe, western civilization was in decline because people did not take time to take tea at four o'clock.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
Nathan, how can you stand playing the same piece over and over again? And Grandpa Nate answered, Why don't you ask me how I can stand making love to the same woman over and over again?
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
Never have a long conversation with anyone who says between you and I.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
By the time they get to 6th grade honor roll students won't risk making a mistake, and sometimes to be successful, you have to risk making mistakes.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
I've been the oldest child since before you were born
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
But happiness is not always loud and bright and crowded. Happiness ripens like a watermelon, sweet and rosy on the inside with only a thin top layer altogether free of small black pits. And, like a watermelon, the whole thing can be covered with a plain dark rind.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
...just because I don't have on a silly black costume and carry a silly broom and wear a silly black hat, doesn't mean that I'm not a witch. I'm a witch all the time and not just on Halloween.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
Indecisiveness wears a person out.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
Kids want acceptance from their peers, but in two different, opposing ways: They want to be like everyone else and they want to be different from everyone else. So the question is: How do you reconcile these opposing longings?
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
Lying in bed just before going to sleep is the worst time for organized thinking it is the best time for free thinking. Ideas drift like clouds in an undecided breeze, taking first this direction and then that.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
I am convinced that not only do children need children's books to fine-tune their brains, but our civilization needs them if we are not going to unplug ourselves from our collective past.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
It is sometimes necessary to use unnecessary words like thank you and please just to make life prettier.
E. L. Konigsburg
Image
True simplicity is elegant.
E. L. Konigsburg