Quotes about writing
writing character unique
What must novel dialogue . . . really be and do? It must be pointed, intentional, relevant. It must crystallize situation. It must express character. It must advance plot. During dialogue, the characters confront one another. The confrontation is in itself an occasion. Each one of these occasions, throughout the novel, is unique. Elizabeth Bowen
writing character mean
Dialogue is the ideal means of showing what is between the characters. It crystallizes relationships. It should, ideally, be so effective as to make analysis or explanation of the relationships between the characters unnecessary. Elizabeth Bowen
writing character fighting
Short of a small range of physical acts-a fight, murder, lovemaking-dialogue is the most vigorous and visible inter-action of which characters in a novel are capable. Speech is what characters do to each other. Elizabeth Bowen
writing dialogue deals
All good dialogue perhaps deals with something unprecedented. Elizabeth Bowen
writing thoughtful thinking
Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he acontemplative purely, he would not write. Elizabeth Bowen
writing intelligent thinking
I am fully intelligent only when I write. I have a certain amount of small-change intelligence, which I carry round with me as, at any rate in a town, one has to carry small money, for the needs of the day, the non-writing day. But it seems to me I seldom purely think ... if I thought more I might write less. Elizabeth Bowen
writing style phony
Style is the thing that's always a bit phony, and at the same time you cannot write without style. Elizabeth Bowen
writing looks littles
... it appears to me that problems, inherent in any writing, loom unduly large when one looks ahead. Though nothing is easy, little is quite impossible. Elizabeth Bowen
writing eye adults
The writer, unlike his non-writing adult friend, has no predisposed outlook; he seldom observes deliberately. He sees what he didnot intend to see; he remembers what does not seem wholly possible. Inattentive learner in the schoolroom of life, he keeps some faculty free to veer and wander. His is the roving eye. Elizabeth Bowen
writing boys pigs
Yes, writing a novel, my boy, is like driving pigs to market - you have one of them making a bolt down the wrong lane; another won't get over the right stile ... Elizabeth Bowen
writing past wish
... in nine out of ten cases the original wish to write is the wish to make oneself felt[ellipsis in source] the non-essential writer never gets past that wish. Elizabeth Bowen
writing paper littles
Nothing arrives on paper as it started, and so much arrives that never started at all. To write is always to rave a little-even if one did once know what one meant Elizabeth Bowen
writing literature firsts
The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what is written. Elizabeth Bowen
writing character mistress
Jane Austen, much in advance of her day, was a mistress of the use of the dialogue. She used it as dialogue should be used-to advance the story; not only to show the characters, but to advance. Elizabeth Bowen
writing said turns
What is being said is the effect of something that has happened; at the same time, what is being said is in itself something happening, which will, in turn, leave its effect. Elizabeth Bowen
writing names
Everything that I write will be signed with my name. Elinor Glyn
writing mail
Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail. Eliot Spitzer
writing attention may
I cannot stand public attention, I just can't. Of course, if I may I might write something instead Elfriede Jelinek
writing feelings want
I do not want to have the feeling of writing "for eternity," so to speak. Elfriede Jelinek
writing worry feelings
I have the feeling it will influence my future writing to the extent that without any material worries I could develop a greater ease, even lightheartedness, in my writing Elfriede Jelinek
writing character voice
Whether I'm writing the script, or someone else writes the initial draft, I'm always an actor's director first. I always try to listen to them a lot, and try to put their voices into their character. Dito Montiel
writing thinking ideas
I think the idea is now for blacks to write about the history of our music. It's time for that, because whites have been doing it all the time. It's time for us to do it ourselves and tell it like it is. Dizzy Gillespie
writing cuz scripts
Anybody can write a film script 'cuz it has been reduced to a formula. Dirk Benedict
writing college acting
To me, all writing is like music. And especially dialogue. I studied music in college; that is what I wanted to be, a composer. Acting got me sidetracked. Dirk Benedict
writing parent becoming
I write from the same place I parent, and since becoming a single parent, I have found it difficult, if not impossible, to write anything of length. Dirk Benedict
writing wife done
It helps to be able to be alone. 'Cuz writing is done alone, unless you collaborate, but I don't do that. Ask my ex-wife. Dirk Benedict
writing kissing peers
I had said before that I'd never write an autobiography because I've been around, and there's a lot that I've seen and heard that stays with me. That's just mine. I didn't want to do a kiss-and-tell, as some of my peers have. Dionne Warwick
writing together letters
Someday, I'm gonna write a poem in a letter; Someday, I'm gonna get that faculty together. David Bowie
writing cutting ideas
You write down a paragraph or two describing several different subjects creating a kind of story ingredients-list, I suppose, and then cut the sentences into four or five-word sections; mix em up and reconnect them. You can get some pretty interesting idea combinations like this. You can use them as is or, if you have a craven need to not lose control, bounce off these ideas and write whole new sections. David Bowie
writing league trying
I find it easier to write in these little vignettes; if I try to get any more heavy, I find myself out of my league. David Bowie
writing artist expression
Drawing is the artist's most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality. Edgar Degas
writing soul different
We would not - from here - counsel anyone to be guided by influences from without. ... If these come as in inspirational writings from within, and not as guidance from others - that is different ... the inspirational may develop the soul of the individual, while the automatic may rarely reach beyond the force that is guiding or directing. Edgar Cayce
writing shapes needs
I feel like you just need to keep writing until the writing itself just begins to take shape. Ed Westwick