You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. ~Arthur Polotnik
Writing Quotes SMS
Writing Quotes SMS
The road to hell is paved with
The road to hell is paved with adverbs. ~Stephen King
The time to begin writing an article
The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say. ~Mark Twain
The good writers touch life often mediocre
The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. ~Ray Bradbury
Authors are magpies echoing each others words
Authors are magpies, echoing each other’s words and seizing avidly on anything that glitters. ~Bergen Evans
No one means all he says and
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. ~Henry Brooks Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 1907, ch. 31, MBT p101
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. ~Hannah Arendt
Loafing is the most productive part of
Loafing is the most productive part of a writer’s life. ~James Norman HallCUL
Every word born of an inner necessity
Every word born of an inner necessity – writing must never be anything else. ~Etty Hillesum, quoted in Ten Fun Things to Do Before You Die by Karol Jackowski
Substitute 34damn34 every time youre inclined to
Substitute "damn" every time you’re inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain
No author dislikes to be edited as
No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published. ~Russell LynesCUL
One ought only to write when one
One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one’s own flesh in the inkpot, each time one dips one’s pen. ~Leo TolstoyPL
We write to remember our nows later
We write to remember our nows later. ~Terri Guillemets
The writer writes in order to teach
The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax. ~Alfred Kazin, Think, February 1963LCD; In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself; to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratifications, is a curious anticlimax. ~Alfred Kazin, DR, LCE
If i fall asleep with a pen
If I fall asleep with a pen in my hand, don’t remove it ? I might be writing in my dreams. ~Terri Guillemets
It is necessary to write if the
It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. ~Vita Sackville-West
One must be drenched in words literally
One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. ~Hart CranePL
Being an author is being in charge
Being an author is being in charge of your own personal insane asylum. ~Terri Guillemets
An original writer is not one who
An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate. ~Chateaubriand, Le Génie du Christianisme, 1802LCD
Sleep on your writing take a walk
Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to your friend, if he be an author especially. ~A. Bronson AlcottConcord Days, April: Scholarship. April 28, 1872; CTO
The land of literature is a fairy
The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible. ~Washington Irving
Easy reading is damn hard writing nathaniel
Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne
It seems to me that those songs
It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page. ~Joan Baez
The best style is the you dont
The best style is the style you don’t notice. ~Somerset MaughamPL
Writing is utter solitude the descent into
Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself. ~Franz KafkaPL
Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation
Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free. ~Samuel Johnson
For me a page of good prose
For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain [and] the noise of battle. ~John Cheever(1912 – 1982) US short-story writer, novelist Accepting National Medal for Literature; recalled on his death 18 Jun 1982
I try to leave out the parts
I try to leave out the parts that people skip. ~Elmore Leonard
What i like in a good author
What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers. ~Logan Pearsall Smith, "All Trivia," Afterthoughts, 1931PMB, p235
Dancing in all its forms cannot be
Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen? ~Friedrich NietzschePL
You never have to change anything you
You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write. ~Saul Bellow
Proofread carefully to see if you any
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. ~Author Unknown
No man should ever publish a book
No man should ever publish a book until he has first read it to a woman. ~Van Wyck BrooksPL
A prose writer gets tired of writing
A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose. ~Samuel McChord Crothers, "Every Man’s Natural Desire to Be Somebody Else," The Dame School of Experience, 1920
The two most engaging powers of an
The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new. ~Samuel JohnsonPL
Writing is a product of silence carrie
Writing is a product of silence. ~Carrie Latet
My language is the common prostitute that
My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin. ~Karl KrausCUL
I asked ring lardner the other day
I asked Ring Lardner the other day how he writes his short stories, and he said he wrote a few widely separated words or phrases on a piece of paper and then went back and filled in the spaces. ~Harold RossFD
Having imagination it takes you an hour
Having imagination, it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that, if you were unimaginative, would take you only a minute. Or you might not write the paragraph at all. ~Franklin P. Adams, Half a Loaf, 1927LCD
A synonym is a word you use
A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one. ~Baltasar Gracián, translated from Spanishmbt; Baltasar Gracian y Morales, Baltasar Graci?n y Morales
What would there be in a story
What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told. ~André GideSD
The first goal of writing is to
The first goal of writing is to have one’s words read successfully. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
The good writing of any age has
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, interview, Writers at Work, 1958LCD
Every writer i know has trouble writing
Every writer I know has trouble writing. ~Joseph Heller
Publication is the auction of mind
Publication – is the auction of the Mind of Man. ~Emily DickinsonLCE
Drama instead of telling us the whole
Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man’s life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible. ~Leo TolstoyPL
The process of writing has something infinite
The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation. ~Elias Canetti
And by the way everything in life
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath
A writer and nothing else a man
A writer and nothing else: a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right. ~John K. Hutchens, New York Herald Tribune, 10 September 1961LCD
Ink on paper is as beautiful to
Ink on paper is as beautiful to me as flowers on the mountains; God composes, why shouldn’t we? ~Terri Guillemets
A good style should show no signs
A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident. ~W. Somerset Maugham, Summing Up, 1938LCD
The maker of a sentence launches out
The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
If my doctor told me i had
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster. ~Isaac AsimovDCMOO
The most beautiful things are those that
The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes. ~André Gide, Journals, 1894LCD
Writing i think is not apart from
Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind. ~Catherine Drinker Bowen, Atlantic, December 1957LCD
I write because im afraid to say
I write because I’m afraid to say some things out loud. ~Gordon Atkinson, reallivepreacher.com
All my best thoughts were stolen by
All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients. ~Ralph Waldo EmersonRDB; PMB
The best time for planning a book
The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes. ~Agatha ChristieLCE
Id rather be caught holding up a
I’d rather be caught holding up a bank than stealing so much as a two-word phrase from another writer. ~Jack Smith
If i dont write to empty my
If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad. ~Lord Byron
The difference between the almost right word
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. ~Mark Twain, letter to George Bainton, 1888 (Thanks, Andrew & Barbara), variation of Josh Billings’ "Don’t mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz about az much difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug."
Its not plagiarism im recycling words
It’s not plagiarism – I’m recycling words, as any good environmentally conscious writer would do. ~Uniek Swain
Was it only by dreaming or writing
Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought? ~Joan Didion
Metaphors have a way of holding the
Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. ~Orson Scott Card
Writing is a struggle against silence carlos
Writing is a struggle against silence. ~Carlos Fuentes
Be obscure clearly eb white
Be obscure clearly. ~E.B. White SD
Caress your phrase tenderly it will end
Caress your phrase tenderly: it will end by smiling at you. ~Anatole France
How vain it is to sit down
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. ~Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 19 August 1851MBT
Our passions shape our books repose writes
Our passions shape our books; repose writes them in the intervals. ~Proust, The Past Recaptured, 1927LCD
Writing comes more easily if you have
Writing comes more easily if you have something to say. ~Sholem Asch
I want to write books that unlock
I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody’s head. ~John UpdikePL
One hates an author thats all author
One hates an author that’s all author. ~George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Beppo", stanza 75; BMC
Dialogue is not just quotation it grimaces
Dialogue is not just quotation. It is grimaces, pauses, adjustments of blouse buttons, doodles on a napkin, and crossings of legs. ~Jerome Stern, Making Shapely Fiction, 1991TPVgb p.14
Novelists fashioning nets to sustain and support
Novelists… fashioning nets to sustain and support the reader as he falls helplessly through the chaos of his own existence. ~Fay WeldonPL
The role of a writer is not
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin
Writing is a socially acceptable form of
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow
Books want to be born i never
Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such. ~Samuel ButlerPL
It is the little writer rather than
It is the little writer rather than the great writer who seems never to quote, and the reason is that he is never really doing anything else. ~Havelock EllisCUL
The pages are still blank but there
The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. ~Vladimir Nabakov
A writer is somebody for whom writing
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. ~Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades, 1947LCD
Write your first draft with heart re write
Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head. ~From the movie Finding Forrester
Write down the thoughts of moment those
Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. ~Francis Bacon
Let me walk through the fields of
Let me walk through the fields of paper
touching with my wand
dry stems and stunted
butterflies….
~Denise Levertov, "A Walk through the Notebooks"
There are men that will make you
There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters. ~Miguel de CervantesQSO
Sit down and put down everything that
Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. ~Colette, Casual Chance, 1964LCD
To withdraw myself from has ever been
To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all. ~Lord Byron
I love writing the swirl and swing
I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. ~James Michener
I hate writing love having written dorothy
I hate writing, I love having written. ~Dorothy Parker, may not be exact wordingGloria Steinem in PL no no