Writing Quotes

Why would anybody lie? The truth is always more colourful.

Writing is a deeper sleep than death. Just as one wouldn't pull a corpse from its grave, I can't be dragged from my desk at night.

I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.

You can't write nothing that ain't real.

Writing is an antisocial act.

I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.

I'd like to do something meaningful in the smallest ways, not just words or idiotic writing.

There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.

I think every band is a little cautious when the drummer starts to write tunes.

It's fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats as I am most of the time — for jittery people.

I had developed this habit of writing scenarios as a hobby. I would find out which stories had been sold to be made into films and I would write my own treatment and then compare it.

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.

You write to become immortal, or because the piano happens to be open, or you've looked into a pair of beautiful eyes.

The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself

I believe it is important that we Japanese write a constitution for ourselves that would reflect the shape of the country we consider desirable in the 21st century.

I write about what I know and what I have experienced. This keeps me an "honest" writer.

My writing is consistently influenced by everything I watched and listened to growing up, so it's just this crazy collage of everything.

I consider it a good rule for letter-writing to leave unmentioned what the recipient already knows, and instead tell him something new.

A recurring ideal, I find, is that of simplicity. At times there comes the desire to write with great precision and clarity, words so simple and moving that they bring tears to the eyes.

Normally, I spend a week on the outline and take two weeks to write the book.

God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. That's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character.

Advice to writers: Sometimes you just have to stop writing. Even before you begin.

Artistic honesty sometimes prevents an artist from being born.

Writing is an exercise in sculpture, chipping away at the rock until you find the nose.

And the stuff that I write, is even tougher than dykes.

Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.

I'm me, and I'm here, and I'm writing.

Before I write I let my mind go blind and let the lord do his thing.

Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

Listening to critics is like letting Muhammad Ali decide which astronaut goes to the moon.

A man is not learned until he can read, write and swim.

When you write a goal down your subconscious brain begins to more actively think about bringing into your life the people, resources and knowledge you need to achieve your goals.

Fool," said my muse to me. "Look in thy heart and write.

With all the things I know, one could write a book... Although, one might also say that, considering all that I don’t know, one could create a library.

We just write down a bunch of words, and pray to god they make sense. And if we don't, it doesn't matter, we're artists.

The will to originality is not the will to be peculiar and unlike anybody else; it means the desire to derive one's consciousness from its primary source.

I think e-mail is kind of a cheap way to communicate. It's a lazy way of writing a letter, you know.

The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties.

Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day.

The first writing I did was short short stories for a newspaper syndicate for which I was paid five dollars a piece on publication.

Why write a book on uncovering past lives? Because the benefits for personal empowerment, healing, and enlightenment are tremendous.

Musicians always have music in their heads about their perceptions of the world.

The sad part about happy endings is there's nothing to write about.

The age is materialistic. Verse isn't. I must be with the age, so I am writing prose.

Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'

It's the writing that teaches you.

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.

I have sat here at my desk, day after day, night after night, a blank sheet of paper before me, unable to lift my pen, trembling and weeping too.

Praise can be your most valuable asset as long as you don't aim it at yourself.

In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you're a great writer, you must say that you are.