Writing Quotes

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once.

Have you ever heard the expression: Walk a mile in my shoes, and then judge me? And write your own books.

Writing fiction takes me out of time. I sit down and the clock will not exist for me for a few hours. That’s probably as close to immortal as we’ll ever get.

I personally feel the need to experience life and new music and ideas before I can sit down and start writing music again.

Sometimes writers of no talent at all can write great acting scenes. Sometimes the very best writers can't write scenes that come to life.

I am writing graffiti on your body. I am drawing the story of how hard we tried.

I began to write poetry when I was about four years old. In other words, I've always been writing poetry.

Gardening is akin to writing stories. No experience could have taught me more about grief or flowers, about achieving survival by going, your fingers in the ground, the limit of physical exhaustion.

In good writing, words become one with things.

The aim of art is almost divine: to bring to life again if it is writing history, to create if it is writing poetry.

I have always been fascinated by dark and mysterious stuff. I guess I have a pretty dark and gloomy side. Writing songs saves me from going completely gonzo.

Women who are inclined to write poetry at all are inspired by being mad at something.

The secret of good writing is telling the truth.

I can write better than anyone who can write faster.

The truth is, writing is this: hard and boring and occasionally great but usually not.

Good sense is both the first principal and the parent source of good writing.

I think the musicians I play with solo do a certain thing that the musicians we play with with the Indigo Girls don't do. It's just a different thing. And it sort of steers my writing in some ways.

I couldn't write a song to save my life. I wouldn't say that I started to panic, but I was definitely getting frustrated. I couldn't even cross a t or dot an i.

Writing is my love. If you love something, you find a lot of time. I write for two hours a day, usually starting at midnight; at times, I start at 11.

After my tour I had time to stay at home, be with my boyfriend and hang out with friends and that brought me down to earth and helped me write music from a more relaxed place.

By the end of the writing process, which is about 80 songs per album, I look at the material and think, what's going to make a difference in someone's life.

I doubt I'll be singing forever, because at some point people aren't going to want to hear my music, and I hope that I'll still get the opportunity to write songs.

Some people have enough dust on their bibles to write damnation on it.

I long to create something that can't be used to keep us passive: I want to write a script about plumbing, how every pipe is joined to every other.

Writing history is a method of getting rid of the past.

I have a theory you shouldn't write a book unless you have something to say.

With each book you write you should lose the admirers you gained with the previous one.

Once you're imagining being the main character, and you're having the conversations and actually being there, the magic in fiction writing takes over.

Don't apologize, justify or rationalize bad art or bad writing. If you do, you are part of it.

I did not go to any creative writing workshop; I did not major in literature. If I can write, anyone can write. All it needs is imagination.

I write journals and would recommend journal writing to anyone who wishes to pursue a writing career. You learn a lot. You also remember a lot... and memory is important

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I got my undergrad in Creative Writing, and then I didn't get my Masters in obsession, because I figured I already had that covered.

I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.

Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking.

Creative writing and literacy go hand and hand.

All through my writing life I've had this impulse to write autobiographical works.

Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.

I like writing songs all females can relate to - songs about when you're a chick and you get your heart broken and you go shopping.

Once, lovers on faraway shores sat by candlelight and dipped ink to parchment, writing words that could not be erased. They took an evening to compose their thoughts, maybe the next evening as well.

Painting for process is the visual equivalent of journal writing, done not for the sake of being seen or published, but purely for the telling itself.

I just got a fortune cookie that says "Turn off your computer and read a book" which is odd because I'm WRITING a book...on my computer!

When one's not writing poems - and I'm not at the moment - you wonder how you ever did it. It's like another country you can't reach.

I wish you good writing and good luck. Even if you've already done the good writing, you'll still need the good luck. It's a shark-filled lagoon out there. Cross your fingers and watch your back.

To idealize: all writing is a campaign against cliché. Not just clichés of the pen but clichés of the mind and clichés of the heart.

This (writing) is the love of your life. It's what I want to do when I wake up. Nothing feels so absorbing, so fulfilling.

All these things that enter your head are assignments. You write them up and then throw them out there and if someone wants to do it, your assignment is done.

I am not a total, complete nitwit when it comes to selling books. I promise you there will be unexpected things. Some of them I don't know yet. She's writing it all herself.

The writing career is not a romantic one. The writer's life may be colorful, but his work itself is rather drab.

I had at some point the epiphany that if I wanted to be a writer, maybe I should stop thinking about writing, or stop writing about writing, and actually write.