Brevity / Dinty W. Moore
@dintywmoore.bsky.social
Editor of Brevity, a small magazine with big ambitions. Author of various books. Often can't decide if I am posting as myself or as the magazine.
"We’re all in line to get on that bus but few of us know when." ~ Charles Coe
November 24, 2025 at 12:09 PM
"We’re all in line to get on that bus but few of us know when." ~ Charles Coe
"Without craft, art remains private. Without art, craft is merely homework." ~ Joyce Carol Oates
November 21, 2025 at 12:19 PM
"Without craft, art remains private. Without art, craft is merely homework." ~ Joyce Carol Oates
"There's no such thing as a born writer. It's a skill you've got to learn, just like learning how to be a bricklayer or a carpenter." ~ Larry Brown
November 20, 2025 at 11:30 AM
"There's no such thing as a born writer. It's a skill you've got to learn, just like learning how to be a bricklayer or a carpenter." ~ Larry Brown
"Examine all things intensely and relentlessly. Probe and search each object in a piece of art; do not leave it, do not course over it, as if it were understood, but instead follow it down until you see it in the mystery of its own specificity and strength." ~ Annie Dillard
November 18, 2025 at 12:07 PM
"Examine all things intensely and relentlessly. Probe and search each object in a piece of art; do not leave it, do not course over it, as if it were understood, but instead follow it down until you see it in the mystery of its own specificity and strength." ~ Annie Dillard
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the entire universe.” ~ Carl Sagan
November 10, 2025 at 12:27 PM
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the entire universe.” ~ Carl Sagan
“Stories move in circles. They don’t go in straight lines. So it helps if you listen in circles. There are stories inside stories and stories between stories, and finding your way through them is as easy and hard as finding your way home.” ~ Naomi Newman
November 6, 2025 at 11:33 AM
“Stories move in circles. They don’t go in straight lines. So it helps if you listen in circles. There are stories inside stories and stories between stories, and finding your way through them is as easy and hard as finding your way home.” ~ Naomi Newman
"How do we write joy without all the implied exclamation marks, the gooey language, the purpling of our prose? How do we make, of joy, a story that is alerting, alive, and credible?" ~ Beth Kephart
November 4, 2025 at 12:18 PM
"How do we write joy without all the implied exclamation marks, the gooey language, the purpling of our prose? How do we make, of joy, a story that is alerting, alive, and credible?" ~ Beth Kephart
"Halloween ... is the crack between the last golden rays of summer and the dark of winter; the delicately balanced tweak of the year before it is given over entirely to the dark; a time for the ... departed to squint, to peek and perhaps to travel through the gap." ~ Jenny Colgan
October 31, 2025 at 11:47 AM
"Halloween ... is the crack between the last golden rays of summer and the dark of winter; the delicately balanced tweak of the year before it is given over entirely to the dark; a time for the ... departed to squint, to peek and perhaps to travel through the gap." ~ Jenny Colgan
"Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. " ~ James Joyce
October 28, 2025 at 11:36 AM
"Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. " ~ James Joyce
"Make room for new truths that are more potent than the ones we think we know." ~ Jeannine Ouellette / @jeannineouellette.bsky.social
October 24, 2025 at 12:15 PM
"Make room for new truths that are more potent than the ones we think we know." ~ Jeannine Ouellette / @jeannineouellette.bsky.social
"Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please ... tell us something that will save us from ourselves." ~ Alan Watts
October 21, 2025 at 12:20 PM
"Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please ... tell us something that will save us from ourselves." ~ Alan Watts
“We may believe that only certain conditions will make us happy. But ... the conditions for happiness are already there, available inside and around us. We have eyes that can see, legs that can walk, lungs that can breathe.” ~ Thich Nhất Hanh
October 20, 2025 at 11:50 AM
“We may believe that only certain conditions will make us happy. But ... the conditions for happiness are already there, available inside and around us. We have eyes that can see, legs that can walk, lungs that can breathe.” ~ Thich Nhất Hanh
“Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.” ~ Julia Cameron,
October 15, 2025 at 10:40 AM
“Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.” ~ Julia Cameron,
"Sentences are the bricks as well as the mortar, the motor as well as the fuel. They are the cells, the individual stitches. Their nature is at once solitary and social. Sentences establish tone, and set the pace. One in front of the other marks the way." ~ Jhumpa Lahiri
October 13, 2025 at 11:55 AM
"Sentences are the bricks as well as the mortar, the motor as well as the fuel. They are the cells, the individual stitches. Their nature is at once solitary and social. Sentences establish tone, and set the pace. One in front of the other marks the way." ~ Jhumpa Lahiri
"The problem we’re up against, as writers and people alive in this world is that everything does not happen for a reason, it just happens." ~ Kathryn Nuernberger / @katnuernberger.bsky.social
October 10, 2025 at 11:27 AM
"The problem we’re up against, as writers and people alive in this world is that everything does not happen for a reason, it just happens." ~ Kathryn Nuernberger / @katnuernberger.bsky.social
"I came to poetry through a love of reading poetry ... The feeling of how much could happen in such a small space was heady." ~ Baron Wormser
October 9, 2025 at 11:10 AM
"I came to poetry through a love of reading poetry ... The feeling of how much could happen in such a small space was heady." ~ Baron Wormser
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. ~ Groucho Marx
October 7, 2025 at 11:56 AM
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. ~ Groucho Marx
“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?” ~ Vita Sackville-West
October 6, 2025 at 11:58 AM
“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?” ~ Vita Sackville-West
"Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art." ~ James Baldwin
October 3, 2025 at 10:57 AM
"Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art." ~ James Baldwin
"What I write is smarter than I am, because I can re-write it." ~ Susan Sontag (photo by Annie Leibovitz)
October 1, 2025 at 12:06 PM
"What I write is smarter than I am, because I can re-write it." ~ Susan Sontag (photo by Annie Leibovitz)
"Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth." ~ Edna Ferber
September 29, 2025 at 11:55 AM
"Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth." ~ Edna Ferber
"Sing and do not stop. March and do not stop. Work and do not stop. Write your story across the sky and don't despair because despair is the most powerful weapon of the dominant." ~ Luis Alberto Urrea / @urrealism.bsky.social
September 26, 2025 at 12:16 PM
"Sing and do not stop. March and do not stop. Work and do not stop. Write your story across the sky and don't despair because despair is the most powerful weapon of the dominant." ~ Luis Alberto Urrea / @urrealism.bsky.social
"If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive." ~ Barry Lopez
September 25, 2025 at 1:06 PM
"If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive." ~ Barry Lopez
Someone once told me that every writer has a subject that underlies everything they write. It can be love or death, betrayal or belonging, home or hope or exile. I choose to think my subject is love, and most specifically love for the glittering world of non-human life around us ~ Helen Macdonald
September 24, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Someone once told me that every writer has a subject that underlies everything they write. It can be love or death, betrayal or belonging, home or hope or exile. I choose to think my subject is love, and most specifically love for the glittering world of non-human life around us ~ Helen Macdonald
"The creative process is a process of surrender, not control. Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise." ~ Julia Cameron
September 22, 2025 at 12:09 PM
"The creative process is a process of surrender, not control. Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise." ~ Julia Cameron