Writing Quotes

I think that in the process of writing, all kinds of unexpected things happen that shift the poet away from his plan and that these accidents are really what we mean when we talk about poetry.

If you want to write for yourself, get a diary. If you want to write for your friends, get a blog. If you want to write for others...become an author.

As the number of studies increased, it became clear that writing was a far more powerful tool for healing than anyone had ever imagined.

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.

One should use common words to say uncommon things

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

Writing is the delicate, difficult, and dangerous means of succeeding in avowing the unavowable.

That isn't writing at all, it's typing.

Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.

Only a generation of readers will span a generation of writers.

Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.

If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's.

Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.

No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons.

It’s not the word made flesh we want in writing, in poetry and fiction, but the flesh made word

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

If your way of life is writing, then everything that happens becomes a sentence.

Because I don’t work with an outline, writing a story is like crossing a stream, now I’m on this rock, now I’m on this rock, now I’m on this rock.

As a composer at a point where I can absolutely pick and choose what I want to do, I don't want to write about anybody I don't care about.

Knowledge is the foundation and source of good writing. [Lat., Scibendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.]

Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.

If you're writing songs by yourself, who's going to tell you if it's good or not? But if you're writing songs with somebody else, you get that immediate feedback.

I have a hard time writing music when I'm on tour.

In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.

To be successful in writing, use short sentences.

And so I write the way I myself would like the book to be – if I were a child. I write for the child within me.

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chair.

Writing isn't a source of pain. It's psychic chemotherapy. It reduces your psychological tumors and relieves your pain.

I didn't set out to write certain kinds of songs - I just set out to write good songs.

I'm always aware of writing around things I can't do, and I've come to think that that's actually what 'style' is - an avoidance of your deficiencies.

I will always really work hard to write as much as I can, but I also love sitting back and waiting on those big Nashville songwriters to send me some great songs, too.

One cannot choose what he writes - one can only choose to face it.

When you write from your gut and let the stuff stay flawed and don't let anybody tell you to make it better, it can end up looking like nothing else.

I'm in good form, taking no interest in things, neglecting clothes, meals, company, and feeling calm and stable as I write.

Writing down your trades is the best exercise in the world.

You've got to be willing to read other people's code, then write your own, then have other people review your code.

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.

Writing is a form of herding. I herd words into little paragraph-like clusters.

Narrative becomes the way you make sense of chaos. That's how you focus the world. It's the only reason you should ever try this writing job.

There is no mistaking the dismay on the face of a writer who has just heard that his brain child is a deformed idiot.

By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it.

I've enjoyed being a famous writer-except that every once in a while you have to write something.

I spend a lot of time preparing. I think a lot about what I want to do. I have prep books, little notebooks in which I write everything down before a sitting. Otherwise I would forget my ideas.

Every morning like a scholar at his first class I prepare a blank mind for the day to write upon.

It does not matter whether one paints a picture, writes a poem, or carves a statue - simplicity is the mark of a master-hand.

The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write.

I've done for the most part pretty much what I intended - I ended up doing comedy, writing and painting. I've had a ball. And as I get older, I just become an older kid.

To write a symphony is, for me, to construct a world.