Although for some reason we don’t get it on local public radio, WBHM, I’ve always been a fan of The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor.  It has a great feature on its website where you can sign up for a daily e-mail newsletter.  It’s always at least one poem a day, plus a collection of information and quotes relevant to writers.  I’ve been a subscriber for over a year now and they’ve never done anything too annoying or, to my knowledge, sold my e-mail address for marketing.  I highly recommend it.

The following is just a smattering of inspirational quotes that I’ve collected from the newsletter.

• “We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell
• “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” – Gloria Steinem
• “Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for.” – Earl Warren
• “What we do might be done in solitude and with great desperation, but it tends to produce exactly the opposite. It tends to produce community and in many people hope and joy.” – Junot Diaz
• “Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.” – Gustave Flaubert
• “If you fail, better to fail while daring greatly.” – Theodore Roosevelt
• “A poem is words that fit together in a special way so it’s easy to remember and it sounds like magic.” – Annie Finch
• “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Pablo Picasso
• “You are the storyteller of your own life and you can create your own legend or not.” – Isabel Allende
• “A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.” – Franz Kafka
• “Style is knowing who you are, what to say, and not giving a damn.” – Gore Vidal

Also, one more which, although not from the Almanac, seems relevant: “You’re either rebuilding for something special, or you’re on the verge of something special.  To be in between is foolish.” – Billy Beane