What Is Writing Quotes

Writing and thinking is not economically sustainable.

Even before I started writing songs, that was one of my goals to be a writer, and I still have that goal. I've just gotten sidetracked.

A creative writing program is only as good as its teachers, and I was fortunate in having two great writers as mentors.

Whatever may be our natural talents, the art of writing is not acquired all at once.

Every actor just wants good writing.

I got into writing and thinking about politics because I was told there would be no math.

The best visual book I can think of is Lynda Barry's What It Is, but although I refer to it all the time it's not a creative writing book per se.

I have to have music as a soundtrack to writing fiction. I listen to it at other times, too, but it helps me write.

I believe the best creative writing lessons live in the specifics.

But one does not make living writing poetry unless you're a professor, and one frankly doesn't get a lot of girls as a poet.

She could become a spinster, like Emily Dickinson, writing poems full of dashes and brilliance, and never gaining weight.

Expressing political opinion can be a powerful way to establish a character's voice when writing fiction.

The thing I am attracted to is just good writing and stories that are based somewhat in reality.

Writing fiction, like reading fiction, is a practice in empathy.

Writing poetry is like always being in love. What masochism! What luxury!

I was an English major in college, took a ton of creative writing courses, and was a newspaper reporter for 10 years.

I speak Mandarin and can read and write a little. I took a few classes at Harvard to get better in my reading and writing skills.

I'm a professional. So before I published any novels, I'd always been writing stories.

There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.

As an actor, you are in a unique position because you’re not only memorizing dialogue but really embodying it. You naturally feel the rhythm of good writing.

I dream of writing a book like LOVERS some day. It is so spare but so rich. It is history made intimate, and a masterpiece of compression.

I love it, I hate it, it's ecstasy when I'm writing well, it's despair when I'm not. I wouldn't wish this life on anyone, nor would I, could I, ever give it up.

For me, writing plays is far more an act of the mind than of the emotions. It's a very different kind of impulse than fiction writing.

Never believe that the fiction writing life makes sense.... It's insanity by definition.

Crime fiction is a genre for writing stories about people - about conflict, about guilt, about passion, about the human condition.

Writing music is just something that I was born to do.

When you're writing fiction, you don't have notes necessarily. You don't carve it, it's not like a piece of sculpture, it's more like water color.

I love stories, but writing fiction is another craft and I don't feel as if I have it.

I have writing songs on my own for about six years.

Writing a book is like loving someone. It can be very painful.

That's what my life is, writing songs.

Actually, my first literary heroes were the Romantic poets, so I began to get serious by writing poems. I have notebooks full of them that I cherish but am afraid to look at.

The good thing about writing fiction is that you can get back at people.

I never enjoyed writing a book more; indeed, it is the only one I remember in no sense as a labor but as a joy.

One of the most productive times in my early writing life was while I had a full-time job as a word processor in a law firm and also worked part-time at night, often working until 11:00 P.M.

Yeah, Under The Table And Dreaming shaped the way that I think about writing songs.

Good writing is good writing, but that doesn't mean you can't orchestrate it or tweak it.

I really had a great time working with Modest Mouse, just because of the people. I loved writing songs with Isaac Brock, and Jeremiah Green is probably my favorite musician that I've worked with.

Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music.

Writing a book about yourself is like therapy, and you go 'Oh My God, that's the reason that happened.' Writing about it, you're forced to really examine things.

I'm not really one to be on camera, I'd rather be writing songs.

Do you know what writing a book is? It's sitting alone in a room for weeks without making contact with another human. I felt like Howard Hughes.

I began writing poetry when I was about 10. Bad poetry, but you start with bad poetry.

I'm not too concerned what happens to my books after I'm dead. But I am very concerned by what's going on with the culture of reading and writing nowadays.

Reading and writing are the same thing; it's just one's the more active and the other's the more passive. They flow into each other.

Right now I really enjoy writing songs.

The art of writing is mysterious, the opinions we hold are ephemeral.

I don't think there's any essential difference, at least for me, between writing poetry and writing prose.

I remember those days right after I graduated from college. All I had to do was wake up in the morning and think about writing songs. It's not like that anymore, needless to say.

I just thought it was important that people knew right from the jump that I've got problems. But in all seriousness, that's a huge part of my writing process.