I have always been fascinated with the thoughts, ideas, wisdom, and advice that accomplished writers could give those of us who are battling day and night to write our next book and also market it. And that is one reason why I have been developing my series on “Primer for Writers.”

Someone suggested that I take a look at Yogi Berra.

Huh?

Well, after thinking it over, that’s not as farfetched as it sounds. Yogi Berra is and will always be one of my favorite baseball players even though I grew up detesting the pinstripes of his New York Yankees. Yogi was different. He played with the unbridled enthusiasm filled with childlike innocence.

He was a great catcher. He was a feared hitter. He stood only five feet and eight inches tall, but he was bigger than life, earning a place on the All-Century Team and being inducted in the baseball Hall of Fame.

Yogi Berra has even written books, too.

Well, at least his name is attached to several of them although there are some who swear that Yogi probably never even read a book.

He was a master of fractured English, malapropisms, and nonsensical quotes. If his advice doesn’t help you as a writer, it does at least provide you with the makings of fascinating character that no one will ever forget.

*We made too many wrong mistakes.

* You can observe a lot by just watching.

*A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.

*If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.”

*If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up some place else.

*The future ain’t what it used to be.

*Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise they won’t come to yours.

*Never answer anonymous letters.

*Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true.

*I don’t if they were men or women running naked across the field. They had bags over their heads.

*It gets late early out there.”

“It ain’t over till it’s over.”

*You’ve got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might not get there.

*It you can’t imitate him, why copy him?

*I wish I had an answer to that because I’m tired of answering that question.

*In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

*It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.

*It was impossible to get a conversation going. Everybody was talking too much.

*Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.

*You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.

You can’t make up dialogue that’s any better than the stuff Yogi spit out almost every day of his life.

He may not have personally written a lot of great books, but he is the kind of character about which great books are written.