Quotes about writ
writing years people
My sister Tiffany told me years ago, 'You can never write about me.' Then she called six months ago and said she wanted to be in a story. She was worried people thought I didn't like her. David Sedaris
writing voice use
Write relentlessly, until you find your voice. Then, use it.
writing scary firsts
At first, writing for The New Yorker was very scary to me. I couldn't imagine anything that I would write in that typeface.
writing airports typewriters
When forced to leave my house for an extended period of time, I take my typewriter with me, and together we endure the wretchedness of passing through the X-ray scanner. The laptops roll merrily down the belt, while I’m instructed to stand aside and open my bag. To me it seems like a normal enough thing to be carrying, but the typewriter’s declining popularity arouses suspicion and I wind up eliciting the sort of reaction one might expect when traveling with a cannon. It’s a typewriter,’ I say. ‘You use it to write angry letters to airport security.
writing watches glee
I cry all the time when I watch 'Glee' because I don't know if it's satire or melodrama and that makes me feel like the writing is aware of itself, and that makes it OK to cry.
writing good-friend thinking
I've maintained old friendships, like with people I knew in the nineteen-seventies, but have lost the knack for meeting new people. This has a lot to do with my writing schedule. I don't want to be disturbed, and the willingness to be disturbed is, I think, part of being a good friend.
writing thinking people
Whenever I write about my family, I start by getting my parent`s approval. I like to think I write about them with obvious affection. When it comes to the people I'm related to, I consider myself to be very lucky.
writing ifs knows
I don't like travelling if I know I have to write about it.
writing thinking people
When I look at a lot of older stuff that I've written, I think one sign of amateur humor writing is when you see people trying too hard.
writing temptation internet
I'm glad that I didn't have the Internet when I started writing. I started writing when I was 20 and didn't show a word of it to anyone until I was 28. I had the sense to keep it to myself. Now the temptation with blogs and such, they're just getting it out there; maybe it would have been best to keep it to themselves.
writing mean thinking
I mean, I'm always happy if I have, like, humiliating asshole things that I did. I think: Oh good, that's a good story. Because if you write about humiliating asshole things other people do it doesn't work as well. I mean, you can, but you can get away with it better if you talk about what an asshole you are. It's much easier.
writing mean thinking
I think if you write humor, then people don't - you know - they don't give you that much credit. They tend to think you just dictate your stories into a tape recorder. And I'm not necessarily insulted by that, because I think that just means that it looks easy.
writing reality thinking
I'm not afraid to write about madness. I always figure that whatever most embarrasses you is something that everyone can relate to, really...because we're just not that different. So if you think, 'Oh my god, this is so embarrassing. I can't possibly talk about that,' and you write about it, the audience is gonna be like, 'that happened to me!
writing trying dialect
No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try.
writing thinking years
All of a sudden, when you're exposed to a large audience, they think you just started writing that day, but I started years before. I look back at things I wrote then and I'm so embarrassed - the writing seems so blocky and choppy to me and I wouldn't have wanted success any sooner because the writing was even worse.
writing doors class
In America, if your next-door neighbor has a Rolls-Royce, you want one too. But in England, if your neighbor has a Rolls-Royce, you want him to die in a fiery accident. That's a quote from someone else, but there's something about American optimism, that feeling you can do anything if you're at least middle class in America. If I can have a writing career, anyone can. There's nothing special about me.
writing thinking identity
I started writing one afternoon when I was twenty, and ever since then I have written every day. At first I had to force myself. Then it became part of my identity, and I did it without thinking.
writing giving people
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
writing insightful stories
A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.
writing firsts teach
When I teach writing, I have a mantra: Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer. David Morrell
writing typewriters hands
I write on the typewriter. I like it because I like the feeling of making something with my hands. I like pressing the key and a letter comes up and is printed on a piece of paper. I can understand that. David McCullough
writing focus needs
When you start to write, things begin to come into focus in a way they don't when you're not writing. It's a very good way to find out how much you don't know because you learn specifically what you need to know that you don't know at the moment by writing.
writing needs knows
In time I began to understand that it's when you start writing that you really find out what you don't know and need to know.
writing thinking wells
To write is to think, and to write well is to think well,
writing thinking suffering
The source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think....Let us dare to read, think, speak, write.
writing love-is thinking
I can fairly be called an amateur because I do what I do, in the original sense of the word - for love, because I love it. On the other hand, I think that those of us who make our living writing history can also be called true professionals.
writing years research
I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I had never been trained in an academic way how to go about the research.
writing independence firsts
According to Adams, Jefferson proposed that he, Adams, do the writing [pf the Declaration of Independence], but that he declined, telling Jefferson he must do it. Why?" Jefferson asked, as Adams would recount. Reasons enough," Adams said. What can be your reasons?" Reason first: you are a Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write ten times better than I can.
writing thinking wells
Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
writing temptation awful
There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.
writing people trying
You have to get inside the people you are writing about. You have to go below the surface. And that's to a very large degree what all writers are doing - they're trying to get below the surface. Whether it's in fiction or poetry or writing history and biography. Some people make that possible because they write wonderful letters and diaries. And you have to sort of go where the material is.
writing thinking play
You can't learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can't learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can't learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
writing lines matter
Write something every single day, even if it's just three lines. And it doesn't matter if it's any good - just write something every day. David Mitchell