Dorothea Brande (1893–1948) was a writer and editor in New York.
Act as though it is impossible to fail.
In the long run it makes little difference how cleverly others are deceived; if we are not doing what we are best equipped to do, or doing well what we have undertaken as our personal contribution to the world's work, at least by way of an earnestly followed avocation, there will be a core of unhappiness in our lives which will be more and more difficult to ignore as the years pass.
it is the sum of small things successfully done that lifts a life out of bondage to the humdrum.
Old habits are strong and jealous.
Most of the methods of training the conscious side of the writer-the craftsman and the critic in him- are actually hostile to the good of the artist's side; and the converse of this proposition is likewise true. But it is possible to train both sides of the character to work in harmony, and the first step in that education is to consider that you must teach yourself not as though you were one person, but two.
So long as new ideas are created, sales will continue to reach new highs.
By going over your day in imagination before you begin it, you can begin acting successfully at any moment.
Act boldly and unforeseen forces will come to your aid.
A problem is often half-solved when it is clearly stated.
Most writers flourish greatly on a simple, healthy routine with occasional time off for gaiety.
The games of the ancient Greeks were, in their original institutions, religious solemnities.
Hitch your unconscious mind to your writing arm.
The most enviable writers are those who, quite often unanalytically and unconsciously, have realized that there are different facets to their nature and are able to live and work with now one, now the other.
Act as if it were impossible to fail.
Criticism and rejection are not personal insults, but your artistic component will not know that. It will quiver and wince and run to cover, and you will have trouble in luring it out again to observe and weave tales and find words for all the thousand shades of feeling that go to make up a story.
All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us from failure towards success.
Fiction supplies the only philosophy that may readers know; it establishes their ethical, social, and material standards; it confirms them in their prejudices or opens their minds to a wider world.