Arthur Gordon

“Words. Just little black marks on paper. Just sounds in the empty air. But think of the power they have! They can make you laugh or cry, love or hate, fight or run away. They can heal or hurt. They even come to look and sound like what they mean. Angry looks angry on the page. Ugly sounds ugly when you say it.”

“You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. Failure is a teacher – a harsh one, perhaps, but the best. You say you have a desk full of rejected manuscripts? That’s great! Every one of those manuscripts was rejected for a reason. Have you pulled them to pieces looking for that reason? You’ve got to put failure to work for you. That’s where you’ll find success. On the far side of failure.”

“Rhythm. Life is full of it; words should have it, too. But you have to train your ear. Listen to the waves on a quiet night; you’ll pick up the cadence. Look at the patterns the wind makes in dry sand and you’ll see how syllables in a sentence should fall. Arthur Gordon”