Dani Shapiro Quotes

Quotes about:

• I try to remember that the job - as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy - of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it.

  Dani Shapiro

  Jobs, Artist, Joy

  Dani Shapiro (2013). “Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life”, p.183, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  46 Copy quote

• It is in the thousands of days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert, and alive.

  Dani Shapiro

  Dream, Thinking, Trying

  Dani Shapiro (2013). “Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life”, p.88, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  30 Copy quote

• Our pain is a part of who we authentically are.

  Dani Shapiro

  Pain

  "Dani Shapiro: 7 Places Where Your Pain Hides" by Dani Shapiro, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 12, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• Open your hearts. Deep inside ourselves, we are all one and the same.

  Dani Shapiro

  Heart, Open Your Heart, Deep Inside

  Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. September 1, 2013.

  7 Copy quote

• We don't choose what's going to wake us up.

  Dani Shapiro

  4 Copy quote

• Everything you need to know about life can be learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to write

  Dani Shapiro

  Writing, Needs, Ongoing

  Dani Shapiro (2013). “Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life”, p.1, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  11 Copy quote

• The only graceful thing to do is recognize and embrace what is actually happening, rather than fight against it.

  Dani Shapiro

  Fighting, Embrace, Things To Do

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• Those memories that are engraved within me become teaching tools, ways of connecting with others, of creating an empathic bridge, of reaching out a hand and saying, I've been there, too.

  Dani Shapiro

  Memories, Teaching, Creating

  Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

  4 Copy quote

• If I dismiss the ordinary—waiting for the special, the extreme, the extraordinary to happen - I may just miss my life.

  Dani Shapiro

  Waiting, Missing, Special

  "Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life". Book by Dani Shapiro, www.huffingtonpost.com. 2013.

  10 Copy quote

• I don't know why this is, but I really believe that things don't happen when we're trying to will them into being. They don't happen when we're waiting for the phone to ring, or the email to pop up in our in box. They don't happen when we're gripping too tightly. They happen - if they happen at all - when we've fully let go of the results. And, perhaps, when we're ready.

  Dani Shapiro

  Letting Go, Monday, Believe

  "The Manifest-Station Q&A Series: Best-Selling Author Dani Shapiro". Interview with Jennifer Pastiloff, www.themanifeststation.net. September 29, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• You can start your day over anytime.

  Dani Shapiro

  4 Copy quote

• This may be a little bit of a provocative thing to say, but the memoirist doesn't owe the reader anything other than a good story and the inclining of the mind in the direction of memory. Of course, the memoirist is not allowed to make things up. But the really skilled memoirist knows what to leave in and what to leave out to serve the story. In autobiography you can't do that.

  Dani Shapiro

  Memories, Mind, Stories

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• All there is to do, right at this very moment, is to breathe in, breathe out, and kiss the joy as it flies.

  Dani Shapiro

  Kissing, Joy, Moments

  4 Copy quote

• Writing has been my window-flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence-my way of interpreting everything within my grasp.

  Dani Shapiro

  Writing, Way, Window

  Dani Shapiro (2013). “Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life”, p.227, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  14 Copy quote

• Confidence is highly overrated when it comes to creating literature. A writer who is overly confident will not engage in the struggle to get it exactly right on the page - but rather, will assume that she's getting it right without the struggle.

  Dani Shapiro

  Struggle, Creating, Literature

  7 Copy quote

• I'm very disciplined, but the one thing that I have addictive behavior about is the Internet.

  Dani Shapiro

  Internet, Behavior, One Thing

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• There’s a great expression in Twelve Step programs: Act as if. Act as if you’re a writer. Sit down and begin. Act as if you might just create something beautiful, and by beautiful I mean something authentic and universal. Don’t wait for anybody to tell you it’s okay. Take that shimmer and show us our humanity. That’s your job.

  Dani Shapiro

  Beautiful, Jobs, Mean

  Dani Shapiro (2013). “Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life”, p.32, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  9 Copy quote

• Logic and faith don't occupy the same side.

  Dani Shapiro

  Sides, Logic

  "Book Release: Devotion". Interview with Kari Wethington, www.elle.com. January 7, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• Courage is more important than confidence

  Dani Shapiro

  Important

  4 Copy quote

• I'll have my students try to follow their minds during the course of a day, just to see the way their minds work, the way our minds hop from thing to thing to thing. The Internet mirrors that to such a degree you can actually see it. Show me your search history and I'll show you who you are.

  Dani Shapiro

  Mirrors, Mind, Trying

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail - not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime.

  Dani Shapiro

  Writing, Persistence, Empathy

  Dani Shapiro (2013). “Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life”, p.10, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  7 Copy quote

• Our teachers are everywhere. Our teachers are right in front of us, and take so many forms. All we need to do is to open our eyes, to be open to and aware of the possibilities. Otherwise, we walk sightless among miracles.

  Dani Shapiro

  Teacher, Eye, Miracle

  Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. September 1, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• I've always felt like my nose is pressed to glass. I always feel a little bit like an outsider.

  Dani Shapiro

  Glasses, Noses, Littles

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• If I waited to be in the mood to write, I'd barely have a chapbook of material to my name. Who would ever be in the mood to write? Do marathon runners get in the mood to run? Do teachers wake up with the urge to lecture? I don't know, but I doubt it. My guess is that it's the very act that is generative. The doing of the thing that makes possible the desire for it.

  Dani Shapiro

  Running, Teacher, Writing

  Dani Shapiro (2013). “Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life”, p.49, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

• If you are a writer or any kind of artist, if you change something as fundamental as where you live - the way you live - then I think you change the very instrument that is trying to make the art

  Dani Shapiro

  Art, Thinking, Trying

  7 Copy quote

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