Today's Words of Inspiration

Writing can be really difficult. Having just passed 200 pages in my very first attempted novel, I feel like I've been working for ages on something without any reward. At times it kills me not to be able to wave it in someone's face and get that immediate feedback that I so desperately crave.

Sometimes I need to find something inspirational to keep me going. It might be an idea that energises me, or reading a great book or sometimes even just a wonderful quote to keep things in perspective.

Here are the words that got me through today:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. - Theodore Roosevelt, "The Man in the Arena" speech, 1910.