Quotes about writ
writing interesting announcing
Instead of announcing what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so. William Strunk, Jr.
writing should-have drawing
A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. William Strunk, Jr.
writing thinking years
I feel like I'm almost ready to write fiction about the border. But even after 10 years of writing nonfiction about it, I don't think I know quite enough to do it right. William T. Vollmann
writing thinking want
[Ernest ]Hemingway always said, "Write about what you know." I think you can do that, and if you want to write about what you don't know, you can. It just takes a lot more work. William T. Vollmann
writing apology matter
If this advertisement be not sufficient, I can only protrude my wormlike tendrils of apology, craving forbearance on the grounds that a writer must write about what he knows, and since I know nothing about any subject it scarcely matters where I dabble. William T. Vollmann
writing thinking want
I think that we're all, as human beings, so limited. If we want to write about ourselves, that's fairly easy. And if we write about our friends or our families, we can do that. But if we want to project ourselves somewhere beyond our personal experience we're going to fail unless we get that experience or we borrow it from others. William T. Vollmann
writing feelings progress
I have this feeling of wending my way or plundering through a mysterious jungle of possibilities when I am writing. This jungle has not been explored by previous writers. It never will be explored. It's endlessly varying as we progress through the experience of time. These words that occur to me come out of my relation to the language which is developing even as I am using it. William Stafford
writing process found
A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things. William Stafford
writing matter no-matter-what
What you have to do as a writer is . . . write day in and day out no matter what happens. William Stafford
writing assessment differences
You shouldn't have standards that inhibit you from writing It really doesn't make any difference if you are good or bad today. The assessment of the product is something that happens after you've done it. William Stafford
writing mind pieces
A student comes to me with a piece of writing, holds it out, says, 'Is this good?' A whole sequence of emergencies goes off in my mind. That's not a question to ask anyone but yourself. William Stafford
writing people finals
I'm simply the happiest, the placidest, when I'm writing, and so I suppose that that, for me, is the final answer. ... It's fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats as I am most of the time. William Styron
writing past judging
Perhaps the critics are right: this generation may not produce literature equal to that of any past generation-who cares? The writer will be dead before anyone can judge him-but he must go on writing, reflecting disorder, defeat, despair, should that be all he sees at the moment, but ever searching for the elusive love, joy, and hope-qualities which, as in the act of life itself, are best when they have to be struggled for, and are not commonly come by with much ease, either by a critic's formula or by a critic's yearning. William Styron
writing people scared
Writing is a fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats... for jittery people. William Styron
writing problem one-word
Writers ever since writing began have had problems, and the main problem narrows down to just one word - life. William Styron
writing practice long
Style comes only have long, hard practice and writing. William Styron
writing men thinking
From the writer's point of view, critics should be ignored, although it's hard not to do what they suggest. I think it's unfortunate to have critics for friends. Suppose you write something that stinks, what are they going to say in a review? Say it stinks? So if they're honest, they do, and if you were friends you're still friends, but the knowledge of your lousy writing and their articulate admission of it will be always something between the two of you, like the knowledge between a man and his wife of some shady adultery. William Styron
writing age neurosis
The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis. William Styron
writing faces hell
Let's face it, writing is hell. William Styron
writing age literature
The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads. William Styron
writing thinking hands
I try to get a feeling of what's going on in the story before I put it down on paper, but actually most of this breaking-in period is one long, fantastic daydream, in which I think about anything but the work at hand. I can't turn out slews of stuff each day. I wish I could. I seem to have some neurotic need to perfect each paragrapheach sentence, evenas I go along. William Styron
writing self form
Writing is a form of self-flagellation. William Styron
writing duty
The writer's duty is to keep on writing. William Styron
writing people way
You never write down to the people - you write the best you can with the hope that someone else will feel the same way. William Kraft
writing mind trying
When I was 30 or so - by that time I had become an assistant D.A. - I decided I would try to write a novel. To be clear: I did not decide to become a novelist. Honestly, it never crossed my mind that I could actually earn a living as a professional novelist. William Landay
writing personality imagine
Probably careful plotting reflects my personality. I am meticulous by nature. I can't imagine speed-writing anything that happens to pop into my head. William Landay
writing matter stories
But if you really love to write and you really love to tell stories and you really love to draw, you just have to keep doing it no matter what anybody says. William Joyce
writing people liberty
I contend that in the kind of nonfiction I write, and that other people also pursue, anything is permissible provided the reader knows what you're taking liberties with. William Least Heat-Moon
writing quests hunts
For me, writing is not a search for explanations but a ramble in quest of what informs a place, a hunt for equivalents. William Least Heat-Moon
writing light cast-away
Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away. William Butler Yeats
writing needs bakers
When Walt Whitman writes in seeming defiance of tradition, he needs tradition for his protection, for the butcher and the baker and the candlestick-maker grow merry over him when they meet his work by chance. William Butler Yeats
writing men land
No man, even though he be Shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands. William Butler Yeats
writing our-words inevitable
Our words must seem to be inevitable. William Butler Yeats