Vicki Baum Quotes
To me, writing is not a profession. You might as well call living a profession. Or having children. Anything you can't help doing.

Quotes to Explore
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Writing about the future and the past is less a way of dramatizing change than of showing, by way of contrast, what abides.
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I read my books to writing workshops and friends, and I'm often focussed just on keeping them entertained. I never think about marketing at all.
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I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.
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I like to perform live like we're all just hanging out in my living room. I'm totally casual and informal on stage.
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I've been writing fiction probably since I was about 6 years old, so it's something that is second nature to me now. I just sit down and start writing. I don't sit down and start writing and it comes out perfectly - it's a process.
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When I'm writing, I'm just in it and trying to figure out what seems best.
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I am a great procrastinator. When the writing is going really well, the laundry piles up.
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'Float On' was a fine song, but I was still writing the lyrics on the last day we were working on it and deciding if it was something we wanted to put on the record.
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Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.
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I studied philosophy, religious studies, and English. My training was writing four full-length novels and hiring an editor to tear them apart. I had enough money to do that, and then rewriting and rewriting and rewriting.
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Because I find writing painful, I try to get it over with as fast as possible. But I write every day, or I lose the thread.
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Freedom is living without chains.
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I'm an intense guy. I run 10 miles a day, which helps alleviate my intensity. Also, singing helps defuse my intensity. Playing the piano helps, and writing helps.
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Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.
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I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction.
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Writing blurbs for books means you have to read the book, and it cuts into the business of bookselling. So every time I get a blurb from a bookseller, I try to write a thank you note.
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I start writing with only the vaguest idea about who my characters are and what is going to happen, and the characters and plot come into existence as I go. I've tried doing it the other way, but for me, outlining is a waste of time because I never follow the outline.
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I made a living being a background singer for years.
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I'm not a natural performer or exhibitionist. When I was younger, I hated the focus, and it made me feel strange.
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Sometimes it's a good idea to think about what you want from a situation, and try to get it, rather than just blurt out the first thing that comes into your head.
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My job is to support businesses, that means promoting British commerce in the big emerging markets that have been neglected in the past. It means keeping Britain open to inward investors, trade and skilled workers. It means cutting red tape which is suffocating growing companies which create jobs.
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May the perfect grace and eternal love of Christ our Lord be our never-failing protection and help.
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No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as 'what a man does with his solitude.'
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To me, writing is not a profession. You might as well call living a profession. Or having children. Anything you can't help doing.