Chuck Wendig > Quotes

“Write as much as you can.
As fast as you can.
Finish your shit.
Hit your deadlines.
Try very hard not to suck.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Here are the two states in which you may exist: person who writes, or person who does not. If you write: you are a writer. If you do not write: you are not. Aspiring is a meaningless null state that romanticizes Not Writing. It’s as ludicrous as saying, “I aspire to pick up that piece of paper that fell on the floor.” Either pick it up or don’t. I don’t want to hear about how your diaper’s full. Take it off or stop talking about it.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Creativity needs time. We’re all dying. Fuck stagnation. High-five creation.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Writers are made--forged, really, in a kiln of their own madness and insecurities--over the course of many, many moons. The writer you are when you begin is not the same as the writer you become.”
― Chuck Wendig, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing

“Did you just say shrug instead of actually shrugging?”
― Chuck Wendig, Blackbirds

“We're all the heroes of our own tales. Even villains.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Moon in the sky, stars out, the wide-open expanse of nothing: it made him feel free and alive as the daytime never did.”
― Chuck Wendig, Wanderers

“If you want to find the way forward, then stop looking for maps and start walking.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Failure is an instruction manual written in scar tissue.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Gotta have a head like a wrecking ball, a spirit like one of them punching clown dummies that always weeble-wobbles back up to standing. This takes time. Stories need to find the right home, the right audience. Stick with it. Quitting is for sad pandas.”
― Chuck Wendig, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing

“Use the words that live inside your head. And if the words that live inside your head are those of a sentimental Victorian troubadour, then please close your head in a door jamb until you kill all that overwrought prose in an act of brain damage.”
― Chuck Wendig, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing

“With the blood of a scoundrel and a princess in his veins, his defiance will shake the stars.”
― Chuck Wendig, Empire's End

“Stories are like wine; they need time. So take the time. This isn’t a hot dog eating contest. You’re not being judged on how much you write but rather, how well you do it. Sure, there’s a balance — you have to be generative, have to be swimming forward lest you sink like a stone and find remora fish mating inside your rectum. But generation and creativity should not come at the cost of quality. Give your stories and your career the time and patience it needs.”
― Chuck Wendig

“Vampires are slicker than goose shit on a glass window.”
― Chuck Wendig

“That is how science and medicine are practiced best, though—we are best when we admit our ignorance up front, and then attempt to fill the darkness of not-knowing with the light of information and knowledge.”
― Chuck Wendig, Wanderers

“Even a small group of people can change the galaxy.”
― Chuck Wendig, Aftermath

“if there’s one mystical energy that powers the galaxy, it’s not the Force. It’s pure, unadulterated irony.”
― Chuck Wendig, Life Debt

“I’m a certified bad-ass indestructible bitch. The sun tries to burn me, I’ll kick him in his fiery balls. I don’t need no stinking suntan lotion.”
― Chuck Wendig, The Cormorant

“Always quick with the wit. It's your defense, isn't it? Little girl doesn't want the world to know how sad she is, how damaged. Your words, your attitude, all a big misdirection. A magician's trick.”
― Chuck Wendig, Mockingbird

“Stories have the power to make people feel. To give a shit. To change their opinions. To change the world.”
― Chuck Wendig, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing

“Buying gifts for a kid. Can we get him a cute little cape and a mustache so he looks like old Uncle Lando?” Lobot”
― Chuck Wendig, Empire's End

“A HUG IS LIKE VIOLENCE MADE OF LOVE.”
― Chuck Wendig, Empire's End

“I love you in the future tense: I will love you, tomorrow and the day after and the day after that until there are no more days left for us.”
― Chuck Wendig, Wanderers

“Storytellers think they're writing for the audience. They're writing, in a way, to hurt the audience.”
― Chuck Wendig

“People are weird, Atlanta thinks. Everybody’s someone different than you suspect.”
― Chuck Wendig, Atlanta Burns

“She thinks, I want an orange soda. And I want vodka to mix into the orange soda. And while we're at it, I'd also like to stop being able to see how people are going to bite it. Oh, and a pony. I definitely want a goddamn pony.”
― Chuck Wendig, Blackbirds

“In horror’s wake, hope was a bountiful garden.”
― Chuck Wendig, The Book of Accidents

“He is less a human-shaped thing and more a pulsing, living band of light. Light that sometimes dims, that sometimes is thrust through with a vein of darkness. She tells herself that it’s normal—Luke said to her, Leia, we all have that. He explained that the brighter the light, the darker the shadow. Right”
― Chuck Wendig, Empire's End

“Hell, nobody's okay. Maybe we never were, and we damn sure aren't now. But we're here. Until we're not. And that's all I find it fair to ask for.”
― Chuck Wendig, Wanderers

“What...what are you?" she asked.
"I'm Batman.”
― Chuck Wendig, Double Dead