Writing Quotes

I wanted to write the most beautiful poem but that is impossible; the world has written its own.

Writing is its own reward.

Whatever a poet writes with enthusiasm and a divine inspiration is very fine. Earliest reference to the madness or divine inspiration of poets.

The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.

Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you'll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books. And then you'll be in as much trouble as I am!

To live is to war with trolls in heart and woul. To write is to sit in judgement on oneself.

My writing has developed drastically . The Return of the Prodigal Son is the most important thing I've done, and my most mature book.

If you want to know what you look like, look into a mirror. If you want to know how you think, you should write

I write only because I cannot stop.

I have no idea! I have been writing for 35 years and from the beginning up to now the situation's almost the same. I'm kind of an ugly duckling. Always the duckling, never the swan.

I did not write it (Uncle Tom's Cabin). God wrote it. I merely did his dictation.

I guess writing is a kind of therapy in the sense that there are things you need to say and you say them, and better out than in.

If you're not inspired and you're working hard to pull inspiration from somewhere and make a song something it's not, then it's very contrived and I don't like to write music that's contrived.

It usually takes me 20 to 90 minutes to write a song because once I start, I don't stop. I like when it's really organic, so I try to knock it out in one shot.

The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud.

Write about what you're afraid of.

I love writing books - I really do. If I could just quit everything and work on a book every day, I would love that most.

Writing is the starting point from which all goodness (and crappiness) flows.

Underneath the visible problems with reading and writing lies the deeper problem of 'illearnacy': an acquired disabling of learning courage and learning initiative.

Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals. Preferably big ones.

You only learn to be a better writer by actually writing.

I like acting and things when I like the writing. If I don't like the writing, I don't like acting. I think in some ways everything starts for me from the place of writing.

Hitch your unconscious mind to your writing arm.

Then in my early teens, when the home computer bubble was blowing, I had one of the first, an Acorn Atom, and used to write primitive adventures on that.

The brain that doesn't feed itself, eats itself.

Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

Never be sincere - sincerity is the death of writing.

... there is ... a big aspect of play in writing novels, and making the story more and more elaborate is just more and more fun.

Writing was my real life and I was more at home with the people of my imagination than with the best I met in the objective world.

Most actors are starving. Most of us are walking around with a flashlight and tweezers looking for evidence. When you have someone that actually writes an acting role, it's rare.

I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, down throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression.

Expansion, that is the idea the novelist must cling to, not completion, not rounding off, but opening out.

In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.

Sheer egoism... Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen - in short, with the whole top crust of humanity.

Once your writing is out there, you can't control how other people perceive it. All you can do is stand in your truth.

It took me three weeks to write the 'Rhapsody in Blue.' I had always wanted to write something blue and Paul Whiteman inspired.

My last page is always latent in my first; but the intervening windings of the way become clear only as I write.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

Books are like your children. They take nine months to write; the manuscript weighs six pounds and...you send them out into the world and hope that some day they'll send back money.

Writing has got to be an act of discovery. Finding out things about what one is writing about.

Those who write for lucre or fame are grosser than the cartel robbers, for they steal the genius of the people, which is its will to resist evil.

That's what fiction writers do: create characters and do terrible things to them for the entertainment of others. If they feel guilty enough, they write happy endings.

I get very invested in characters, it's the only way I find that I can write a book and really make it work.

one does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood.

Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only that one thinks it but also feels it.

When you write the story of two happy lovers, let the story be set on the banks of Lake Como.

Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Once you have looked at the land from atop the Kahlenberg, you will understand what I write and who I am.

I write the music I like. If other people like it, fine, they can go buy the albums. And if they don't like it, there's always Michael Jackson for them to listen to.

Life is this great big blackboard, and on it you write all the things that you do.