1
Our masterpieces are Shakespeare and Jane Austen and griots and Murasaki Shikibu, but they’re also J.K. Rowling and Chuck Palahnuik and Douglas Adams and Amy Tan and Suzanne Collins and Chinua Achebe. Read. Read them all. Read the books you love, and try to read books you don’t. Read the genres you love, but sometimes also read a book outside your comfort zone. Read voraciously.Beth Revis
2
Be fearless. Write what you want. Write how you want. Create art.Beth Revis
3
FAILURE IS INEVITABLE. I will fail. We all will. And having failed, and gotten back up, and failed again, taught me that I can survive failure. This is a downfall in most modern stories: the hero always wins. Because while this story is inspiring, it’s also false. In reality, not everyone wins. It’s 100% true that no one wills all the time, and we expect that–every hero must fall at least once. But it’s also 100% true that some people never win at all, and that’s the thing we try so hard to ignore behind the pretty stories. I could spend the rest of my life trying to be a prima ballerina, and it would not happen. I would fail at that for the rest of my life. FAILURE TEACHES US WHO WE ARE. Because even though I know I would fail forever at being a prima ballerina, I also know that I am not someone who should be a prima ballerina. It’s not who I am, it’s not what I want. Of course I would fail at it.Beth Revis
4
Failure makes the success worth it.Beth Revis
5
There are countless reasons to be jealous. But that doesn’t mean you have to succumb to them.Beth Revis