Quotes about writing
writing eden creative
The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. The writer loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize that he is answerable. Nadine Gordimer
writing fiction truthful
Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.
writing solitude madness
The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It's quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.
writing make-sense
Writing is making sense of life.
writing vision individual
All worthwhile writing... comes from an individual vision, privately pursued.
writing political purpose
What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us what we are while there's another force from inside battling to make us something else.
writing made whole-life
Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.
writing character thinking
what a writer does is to try to make sense of life. I think that's what writing is, I think that's what painting is. It's seeking that thread of order and logic in the disorder, and the incredible waste and marvelous profligate character of life. What all artists are trying to do is to make sense of life.
writing views way
Perhaps the best way to write is to do so as if one were already dead, afraid of no one's reactions, answerable to no one's views.
writing discovery voyages
Writing is always a voyage of discovery.
writing needs made
I never talk about what I'm writing about currently, never. It's private work on your own, no need or obligation to talk about it. Writers are made into performers these days, including myself, but there are some instances in which I will not perform.
writing thinking work-out
a writer doesn't only need the time when he's actually writing - he or she has got to have time to think and time just to let things work out. Nothing is worse for this than society. Nothing is worse for this than the abrasive, if enjoyable, effect of other people.
writing literature stories
I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature. Naguib Mahfouz
writing want lasts
If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.
writing men thinking
Writing is for men who can think and feel, not mindless sensation seekers out of nightclubs and bars. But these are bad times. We are condemned to work with upstarts, clowns who no doubt got their training in a circus and then turned to journalism as the appropriate place to display their tricks.
writing school home
When you spend time with your friends, what do you talk about? Those things which made an impression on you that day, that week ... I write stories the same way. Events at home, in school, at work, in the street, these are the bases for a story. Some experiences leave such a deep impression that instead of talking about them at the club I work them into a novel.
writing people telling-the-truth
The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us... Miriam Makeba
writing envy pity
It is better to arouse envy than pity. Publilius Syrus
writing giving joy
I don't write to give joy to readers but to give them a conscience. Pramoedya Ananta Toer
writing order loser
Let us see whether it is the New Order or me who will be the loser before Indonesian history. I have won. The New Order has fallen and my writings have been translated into 40 languages.
writing men expression
The First Amendment guarantees liberty of human expression in order to preserve in our Nation what Mr. Justice Holmes called a "free trade in ideas." To that end, the Constitution protects more than just a man's freedom to say or write or publish what he wants. It secures as well the liberty of each man to decide for himself what he will read and to what he will listen. The Constitution guarantees, in short, a society of free choice. Potter Stewart
writing archetype
We live with our archetypes, but can we live in them? Poul Anderson
writing thinking choices
If you find yourself imitating another writer, that doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially if you are a young or a new writer. However, you should be conscious of exactly how you are imitating him - word choice, sentence structure, motifs? - and think about why you're doing it. Poppy Z. Brite
writing long being-ignored
If you're a freelance writer and aren't used to being ignored, neglected, and generally given short shrift, you must not have been in the business very long.
writing thinking voice
I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible.
writing animal humanity
If by chance I seated myself to write, she very slyly, very tenderly, seeking protection and caresses, would softly take her place on my knee and follow the comings and goings of my pen - sometimes effacing, with an unintentional stroke of her paw, lines of whose tenor she disapproved. Pierre Loti
writing math thinking
I got into writing and thinking about politics because I was told there would be no math. Jeff Greenfield
writing views play
In fact you can begin to discover and investigate whether you are an actor or not, whether you're in my view, qualified for a life in this profession or in this endeavor by checking yourself out and acting every day, getting plays and scripts and getting together with people and divvying up the parts and acting in one way or another, or writing things. Jeff Goldblum
writing expression use
If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music. Jean Sibelius
writing people has-beens
I must write. If I stop writing my life will have been an abject failure. It is that already to other people. But it could be an abject failure to myself. I will not have earned death. Jean Rhys
writing thinking ifs
When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write.
writing rivers lakes
All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.
writing trying robots
I got to draw monsters, robots and write funny stories. I loved doing that stuff and working with the actors. But it got to be less and less that stuff and more about trying to be everywhere and not being able to do one thing very enjoyably. Jhonen Vasquez