Quotes About Development

Poor things! I know what sort of treatment they have had. If they are timid, it makes them start or shy; if they are high-mettled, it makes them vicious or dangerous; their tempers are mostly made when they are young. Bless you! they are like children, train 'em up in the way they should go, as the good book says, and when they are old they will not depart from it, if they have a chance, that is.

All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise.

My nature was not originally calm,' said I. 'I have learned to appear so by dint of hard lessons and many repeated efforts.

it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe;—and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hothouse, tending it carefully night and day, and shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered from the shock of the tempest.' 'Granted;—but

I should prepare and smooth the path of learning till she could glide along it without the least exertion to herself: which I could not, for nothing can be taught to any purpose without some little exertion on the part of the learner.

Because that is what your babies do, when they grow. They turn around and say it is all your fault.

The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.

I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me.

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

A person of fifty-four who is still so pedantic and small-minded must be so by nature, and will never improve.

keep trying to find a way to become what I'd like to be

Is it really such an admirable trait not to let myself be influenced by others? Am I right in following my own conscience? To be honest, I can't imagine how anyone could say "I'm weak" and then stay that way. If you know that about yourself, why not fight it, why not develop your character? Their answer has always been: "Because it's much easier not to!

To begin with, Margot's a girl, and girls are always more mature than boys.

Quero continuar a viver, mesmo depois de minha morte! E por isso agradeço a Deus, que me deu esse dom, essa possibilidade de me desenvolver e escrever, de saber expressar tudo o que há em mim.

Lajos had said that every 7 years a human being is completely changed, and Hella thinks that is perfectly true. Thank goodness, in 6 1/2 months I shall change my whole being too.

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

Becoming a better writer is going to help you become a better reader, and that is the real payoff.

You have to keep taking the next necessary stitch, and the next one, and the next. Without stitches, you just have rags. And we are not rags.

Plot grows out of character. If you focus on who the people in your story are, if you sit and write about two people you are getting to know better every day, something is bound to happen.

Growing up is not going nearly as efficiently as I had hoped.

What seems true is that something in life, on the highways or in our hearts, is always being installed, or being repaired, or being torn down for the next installation.

This is how we make important changes-- barely, poorly, slowly.

Plot grows out of character. If you focus on who the people in your story are, if you sit and write about two people you know and are getting to know better day by day, something is bound to happen. Characters should not, conversely, serve as pawns for some plot you've dreamed up. Any plot you impose on your characters will be onomatopoetic: PLOT.

I devoured books like a person taking vitamins, afraid that otherwise I would remain this gelatinous narcissist, with no possibility of ever becoming thoughtful, of ever being taken seriously.