W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

W. Somerset Maugham

• Writing
• Rules
• Three

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Quotes to Explore

• Yeah I'm still writing. I've got about 14 tracks now. But we've been on tour so we haven't had time to get back to a rehearsal place.

  

  Ville Valo HIM
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Now

• When you're writing a story in bits and pieces, month in and month out, there really isn't time or space for reflection, no room to learn what those scripts had to teach you.

  

  J. Michael Straczynski
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Space

• When you're in a songwriting class, and you write a song, and you hand it in to a teacher to grade, I'm still going to say that it's a really awesome song whether I got an A or a D. I learned to stick to my guns and take the tools as tools and not as rules.

  

  Madi Diaz
  • Song
  • Hand
  • Teacher

• Global governance cannot be limited to the crafting of instruments related to the promotion of democracy. A key component must be the creation of fair and equitable rules to enhance the development prospects of developing countries.

  

  Kamla Persad-Bissessar
  • Democracy
  • Rules
  • Key

• I taught English and history, so my education for that really helped prepare me for writing historical fiction.

  

  Candace Camp
  • Writing
  • History
  • Education

• Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.

  

  E. L. Doctorow
  • Writing
  • Learn
  • Start

• I started submitting stories for publication when I was about 15, but it was many years before I sold anything. I don't make my living writing science fiction, so in that sense, I'm still not a pro.

  

  Ted Chiang
  • Writing
  • Science
  • Years

• You get on the radio by writing your own songs. But we had the dilemma of not being able to play anywhere because we weren't able to play anything that anyone wanted to hear. So we learned songs that we thought that we could do without puking.

  

  Wayne Kramer
  • Writing
  • Play
  • Thought

• It was failing part of my Ph.D. that led me into novel-writing. By then I was 29, had remarried and had a second baby. It struck me that I'd lost my path in life and I felt frustrated. That's when I started to write.

  

  Kate Atkinson
  • Life
  • Writing
  • Lost

• I can sit and analyze everything and beat myself up and say you don't quite sing as good as you used to, you're writing better songs maybe than you used to, but to me it's just the journey.

  

  Vince Gill
  • Up
  • Good
  • Writing

• My understanding of films was just as much as any young girl who watches Bollywood films. I had no idea about the whole process of filmmaking, about dialogue writing, scripts, screenplay etc. I had probably gone to two or three film shoots in my childhood.

  

  Rani Mukerji
  • Writing
  • Girl
  • Understanding

• Songwriter friends will be like, 'Oh my God, when are you going to put out 'Love Triangle?'' It's just been that song for me that really helped me get a lot of writing sessions and helped jump-start my writing career.

  

  RaeLynn
  • God
  • Friends
  • Career

• Ottawa is a hot spot of Canadian crime writing, with perhaps the greatest concentration of active, involved, published crime writers anywhere.

  

  Vicki Delany
  • Writing
  • Crime
  • Greatest

• I've always been a fan of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. I like working with larger-than-life characters in fascinating worlds - places where the rules are different.

  

  Gale Anne Hurd
  • Life
  • Different
  • Always

• I love writing. Given a choice, after directing for all these years, and if given an army of talented directors, I would not direct at all.

  

  Vikram Rohit Shetty
  • Writing
  • Love
  • Army

• When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that there would be fans of those stories.

  

  Paolo Bacigalupi
  • World
  • Writing
  • Girl

• Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.

  

  Salman Rushdie
  • Writing
  • Pain
  • Baby

• I don't have specific music for when I'm writing. I'm usually listening to the same playlist or 'artist' before I arrive at the computer as when I'm walking somewhere after leaving the computer.

  

  Tao Lin
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Listening

• It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.

  

  Anne Tyler
  • Writing
  • Children
  • May

• Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellencies, which are out of the reach of the rules of art.

  

  Joshua Reynolds
  • Art
  • Power
  • Genius

• I always try and find new things to think about and address. That really opens you up as a writer. I can write a lot of what I feel and it helps put it into clearer perspective.

  

  Richard Lewis Springthorpe
  • Thinking
  • Writing
  • Trying

• One who has self-esteem esteems oneself because one knows the value of one's being as a singular yet universal expression of the highest value in the Kosmos-the Universal Self, also known as God, Kami, or Brahma, or by many other names.

  

  Yasuhiko Kimura
  • God
  • Value

• We go to Europe, and they think we're totally prejudiced 'cause we hang the bars and stripes. But for us, the bars and stripes doesn't mean we want to see anybody in slavery or anything like that. It's just our heritage. To us, the bars and stripes means grits, 'y'all,' and the beauty of the South. There's no prejudice at all in that with us.

  

  Johnny Van Zant Lynyrd Skynyrd
  • Europe
  • Bars
  • Stripes

• There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

  

  W. Somerset Maugham
  • Writing
  • Rules
  • Three