Quotes About Improvement

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best.

Dice che l'uomo è stato creato padrone della terra, ma gli manca una cosa fondamentale: una borsa degli attrezzi. Ah, sospira, se ci fosse un cacciavite per togliere le idee sbagliate e un martello per fissare le buone intenzioni, una chiave inglese per stringere per sempre l'amore e una sega per tagliare col passato! Ma questa attrezzeria non ce l'hanno data e, dopo aver tentennato e scricchiolato, prima o poi ci romperemo.

One study showed an increase of thirty points in IQ scores of orphaned children who were moved from a poor institution to a better one.

And I know things have to get worse before they get better.

Making a better tomorrow, tomorrow.

If you have been, I'm glad you've stopped.

Could do better' is a meaningless conclusion. 'Could be happier' is the only one that counts.

Because it's not perfect, let's not bother. That's crazy! Even if we take three steps forward and two and a half back it's still going half a foot forward.

There is no time to wait for Darwinian evolution to make us more intelligent and better natured. But we are now entering a new phase of what might be called self-designed evolution, in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA.

En cierto modo, la especie humana necesita mejorar sus cualidades mentales y físicas para tratar con el mundo cada vez más complejo que lo rodea y afrontar nuevos desafíos como los viajes espaciales. Y también necesita aumentar su complejidad si los sistemas biológicos deben mantenerse por delante de los sistemas electrónicos. Por el momento, los ordenadores nos aventajan en velocidad, pero no muestran signos de inteligencia.

Uns bleibt keine Zeit, darauf zu warten, dass die darwinistische Evolution aus uns intelligentere und gutartige Wesen macht...Wir werden in der Lage sein, unsere DNA selbst zu verändern und zu verbessern.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

To write is human, to edit is divine.

Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It's not just a question of how-to, you see; it's also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.

Almost everyone can remember losing his or her virginity, and most writers can remember the first book he/she put down thinking: I can do better than this. Hell, I am doing better than this! What could be more encouraging to the struggling writer than to realize his/her work is unquestionably better than that of someone who actually got paid for his/her stuff?

The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.

Some of this book—perhaps too much—has been about how I learned to do it. Much of it has been about how you can do it better. The rest of it—and perhaps the best of it—is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.

Read a lot, write a lot is the great commandment.

As with all other aspects of the narrative art, you will improve with practice, but practice will never make you perfect. Why should it? What fun would that be?

Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle.

There's precious little reform in the human race.

Membacalah empat jam sehari dan menulislah empat jam sehari. Kalau kau tidak bisa meluangkan waktu untuk itu, jangan harap kau bisa menjadi penulis yang baik.

I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: "Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.

If you want to write, you write. The only way to learn to write is by writing.