What Is Writing Quotes

In order to write a book, it is necessary to sit down (or stand up) and write. Therein lies the difficulty.

The author: an imaginary person who writes real books.

In writing, fidelity to fact leads eventually to the poetry of truth.

I would prefer to write about everything; what else is there? But one must be selective.

Writing has got to be an act of discovery....I write to find out what I'm thinking about.

Naturally, no writer who's any good at all would sit down and put a sheet of paper in a typewriter and start typing a play unless he knew what he was writing about.

It's the function of a playwright to write. Some playwrights write a large number of plays, some write a small number.

I usually think about a play anywhere from six months to a year and a half before I sit down to write it out.

To write a play one must be born a playwright. Otherwise, you're starting at a huge disadvantage.

I was twenty-nine years old and I wasn't a very good poet and I wasn't a very good novelist, [so] I thought I would try writing a play, which seems to have worked out a little better.

I think that's foolishness on the part of the playwright to write about himself. People don't know anything about themselves.

To a certain extent I imagine a play is completely finished in my mind - in my case, at any rate - without my knowing it, before I sit down to write.

When a play enters my consciousness, is already a fairly well-developed fetus. I don't put down a word until the play seems ready to be written.

Sometimes I think the experience of a play is finished for me when I finish writing it. If it weren't for the need to make a living, I don't know whether I'd have the plays produced.

Writing should be useful. If it can’t instruct people a little bit more about the responsibilities of consciousness, there’s no point in doing it.

I write plays not to make money, but to stop myself from going mad. Because it's my way of making the world rational to me.

It's wonderful to be able to sit down and write a play.

We can only write well about our sins because it is too difficult to recall a virtuous act or even whether it was the result of good or evil motives.

I really think I write about everyday life. I don't think I'm quite as odd as others say I am.

You're alone with yourself and your own feelings and that gives you deeper access to what you need to get in touch with to write poetry.

But, that was the beginning, though I didn't start writing until I was in high school and when I was in high school I really began to write poetry with great energy and enthusiasm.

I guess that would have been 1968. I was a freshman in college and I wasn't writing good poems, but I was at least trying to write poems then.

Gertrude Stein said, "I write for myself and strangers." I would say I write for myself, strangers and the great dead.

I think the deepest thing is that many fiction writers tell stories but are not elegant writers. But, we're not writing journalism when we're making literature.

And what I've found over time is that for me to write a poem that I think is worthy that I can live with, two things have to happen.

Sometimes I have a feeling that I just can't get rid of. Sometimes there's an experience that I want to write about that I have to get off my chest. Sometimes there are some words that appeal to you.

Now, as I've gotten older I've been able to write more quickly. Sometimes I get in the space of something and I can do a lot in a day.

So, it's a continual process of trial and error and then I find things and I throw it out and start again, but I keep writing it over again.

think what you hope for is that at different times of your life you're able to write the poetry that reflects the moment that you're in on your own journey.

Indeed, if "biology is chemistry with history," as somebody has said, then nature writing is biology with love.

The scope of what I have to say determines the length of what I write.

Our founders did not write that 'We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal.'

Well, the attractive thing about the subject of happiness is that it is notoriously difficult to write.

I was able to not fold and go in a corner because I had my writing as therapy, but also as my tool for struggle.

Sometimes family members will ask to be kept out of certain things that I'm writing, and I try to respect that. I'd much rather have relatives than a book.

I think it's hard to write a book about happiness because fiction requires tension and complication.

It's interesting to see people overcome things. Because if you didn't overcome, you wouldn't be writing it.

Doing an experiment is not more important than writing.

I have observed that vulgar readers almost always lose their veneration for the writings of the genius with whom they have had personal intercourse.

I want to study, to write to live and have a good time.

You couldn't even write me a paper about the roles you would dream of playing in modern musical theatre.

All of the writing on '30 Rock' is a joy to go into. It's pretty hot stuff.

I've never been able to write for stand-up.

I think you write only out of a great trouble. A trouble of excitement, a trouble of enlargement, a trouble of displacement in yourself.

It's difficult to beat making your living thinking and writing about subjects that matter to you.

No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling.

At most, I may write when I am disturbed by something. I have recently discovered the pleasure of finding written answers to written questions.

I cannot stand public attention, I just can't. Of course, if I may I might write something instead

If you only have one shot at writing a headline, there's a lot of pressure.

You have to write scenes and design scenes that are scary and horrific, but that are also watchable. I didn't want people to just feel like they got punched in the stomach.