Quotes about writing
writing thinking self
I think I am less self-assured when I write English than I would be if I were writing in my first language. I have to test each sentence over and over to be sure that it's right, that I haven't introduced some element that isn't English. Louis Begley
writing confession interest
I have no interest in writing confessions, in deliberately baring myself to my readers. I prefer to remain behind a screen.
writing fire long
I may well do some more polemical writing, if a subject that fires me up comes along. Apart from that possibility, I would like to continue to tell stories so long as I have stories to tell.
writing events lessons
As you know, I am a novelist, and I really want to write novels. But I knew enough about the Dreyfus case to understand immediately why what happened to Dreyfus was not merely a cause celebre from the end of the 19th century, but an event that could be shown to teach us lessons of the greatest importance for our own time.
writing fire lakes
A lot of writers ... sit in a log cabin by the lake and put their feet up by the fire in the silence and write. If you can have that that's all very well, but the true writer will learn to write anywhere -- even in prison. Louis Auchincloss
writing character mean
I don't particularly care about having [my characters] talk realistically, that doesn't mean very much to me. Actually, a lot of people speak more articulately than some critics think, but before the 20th century it really didn't occur to many writers that their language had to be the language of everyday speech. When Wordsworth first considered that in poetry, it was considered very much of a shocker. And although I'm delighted to have things in ordinary speech, it's not what I'm trying to perform myself at all: I want my characters to get their ideas across, and I want them to be articulate.
writing rewriting great-writing
There is no great writing, only great rewriting. Louis D. Brandeis
writing rewriting good-writing
There is no good writing; there is only good rewriting.
writing made uncomfortable
I would never write something that made me uncomfortable. Im not sure its even possible. Lori Foster
writing people songwriting
Write about the truth. If you write about the truth, somebody's living that. Not just somebody, there's a lot of people. Loretta Lynn
writing solitude letters
Letter writing is the only device combining solitude with good company. Lord Byron
writing ears way
Nothing so fretful, so despicable as a Scribbler, see what I am, and what a parcel of Scoundrels I have brought about my ears, and what language I have been obliged to treat them with to deal with them in their own way; - all this comes of Authorship.
writing mad mind
If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.
writing gambling unpredictable
Writings like gambling. Unpredictable and sporadic successes make you more addicted, not less. M. John Harrison
writing want causes
You don't want to watch classics with me 'cause I'm constantly writing notes. M. Night Shyamalan
writing thinking dying
Basically, when I'm writing something, I think about what is the subject of the piece. The subject of the piece is our fear of getting old, which is a variation on our fear of dying.
writing people sometimes
Sometimes people can write really great scenes and even a great episode, but they can't see the bigger picture.
writing clean ends
Write one good clean sentence and put a period at the end of it. Then write another one. M. F. K. Fisher
writing cooking desks
A writing cook and a cooking writer must be bold at the desk as well as the stove.
writing thinking littles
No I don't really write thinking about specific actors because it can get in the way a little bit. Lorene Scafaria
writing order despair
Deafness produces bizarre effects, reversing the natural order of things; the interchange of letters is the conversation of the deaf, and the only link with society. I would be in despair, for instance, over seeing you speak, but, instead, I am only too happy to hear you write. Lord Chesterfield
writing thinking people
It ticks me no end when people get ticked off at those of us who comment audibly and in print on events and problems. That's what we're paid for. Why clutter up your mind with a bunch of facts that might inhibit the solve-ability of us who must express an opinion? After all, all the world cries out for a solution to its problems, and we supply them right and left. Come to think of it, it's we who should be giving our deplorers and detractors the blast; because 99% of the time they don't do as we say. Malcolm Forbes
writing letters matter
Personal & Confidential. Letters so marked should be. When the contents are only printed matter, though, the minifrauder succeeds in sowing illwill & ire.
writing holiday mean
There's one post-Christmas chore I love-writing thank-you letters.... Lots of companies for many reasonable reasons, I guess, have a policy against sending even Christmas cards, never mind things, at Christmastime. But our clan gets a big kick out of opening the Warner-Lambert box containing an assortment of their wares; we argue over which of the boys is to get the Union Oil Co. necktie [and] all the holiday long we play the marvelous Christmas music sent by Goodyear.... None of these things means that Forbes or Forbeses have been had. But all of us like being thought of.
writing people too-much
We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. Malcolm Gladwell
writing thinking giving
Nothing frustrates me more than someone who reads something of mine or anyone else's and says, angrily, 'I don't buy it.' Why are they angry? Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head—even if in the end you conclude that someone else's head is not a place you'd really like to be.
writing thinking people
So long as the stereotype is used as a way of understanding how to fix the problem as opposed to demonizing a people or writing them off, then I think it's OK.
writing mean passion
Although I enjoyed writing Film Music it was always a means to an end, in that it enabled me to keep a wife and family and write my classical music, which has always been my passion. Malcolm Arnold
writing men doe
In matters like writing and painting, a man does what he has to do - if he has to write, why then, he writes; and if he doesn't feel the urgent need of writing, there are dozens of professions in which it is easier to earn a comfortable living. Malcolm Cowley
writing successful people
Writing offers fairly large rewards to a few successful people, but the rewards come late, and most writers are failures.
writing simple elements
The germ of a story is a new and simple element introduced into an existing situation or mood.
writing goes-on enjoy
When I'm writing, I thoroughly enjoy it. It just goes on. Malachy McCourt
writing hands long
When I'm writing in long hand, it just goes on and on and on. When I was in the saloon business, I would just greet people and talk to them and avoid taxes, and getting behind the bar. What else.