Sue Monk Kidd Quotes about Writing

Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.

Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.

Writing, Stories, Who We Are

FaceBook post by Sue Monk Kidd from Jan 22, 2014

There's a gap somehow between empathy and activism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of 'soul force' - something that emanates from a deep truth inside of us and empowers us to act. Once you identify your inner genius, you will be able to take action, whether it's writing a check or digging a well.

Sue Monk Kidd

Kings, Writing, Empathy

Finally, I began to write about becoming an older woman and the trepidation it stirred. The small, telling "betrayals" of my body. The stalled, eerie stillness in my writing, accompanied by an ache for some unlived destiny. I wrote about the raw, unsettled feelings coursing through me, the need to divest and relocate, the urge to radically simplify and distill life into a new, unknown meaning.

Sue Monk Kidd

Betrayal, Writing, Destiny

Ann Kidd Taylor, Sue Monk Kidd (2011). “Travelling with Pomegranates”, p.14, Hachette UK

I sit in my new room and write everything down. My heart never stops talking.

Sue Monk Kidd

Writing, Heart, Talking

Barbara Taylor Bradford, Sue Monk Kidd (2001). “Of love and life: three novels selected and condensed by Reader's Digest”

I think many people need, even require, a narrative version of their life. I seem to be one of them. Writing memoir is, in some ways, a work of wholeness.

Sue Monk Kidd

Writing, Thinking, People

We write to taste life twice," Anais Nin wrote, "in the moment and in retrospection.

Sue Monk Kidd

Writing, Taste, Pomegranates

FaceBook post by Sue Monk Kidd from Feb 10, 2014

A lot of time you write out of some unconscious place. I try to trust what is coming and where it wants to take me.

Sue Monk Kidd

Writing, Trying, Want

I'll write this all down for you," I said. "I'll put it in a story." I don't know if that's what he wanted to ask me, but it's something everybody wants--for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.

Sue Monk Kidd

Hurt, Writing, Stories

Sue Monk Kidd (2003). “The Secret Life of Bees”, p.185, Penguin