Alice Notley Quotes

Writing poetry is what I am. I wouldn’t know what else to be.

Alice Notley

• Writing
• Poetry
• To Be

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• With the release of her fourth album, 'Red,' in 2012 and a handful of highly publicized romances, Taylor was criticized by the press and other entertainers for such sinful acts as dating people and writing songs about it, gaining a reputation as boy-crazy and love-ridden.

  

  Tavi Gevinson
  • People
  • Writing
  • Crazy

• I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

  

  Rachel Johnson
  • Writing
  • Done
  • Thing

• Revision is the heart of writing. Every page I do is done over seven or eight times.

  

  Patricia Reilly Giff
  • Writing
  • Heart
  • Done

• When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it.

  

  E. L. Doctorow
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Doing

• The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.

  

  Natalie Goldberg
  • Writing
  • You
  • Quality

• I like writing about biology, not doing it.

  

  Kary Mullis
  • Writing
  • Doing
  • Biology

• I think that the idea that I'm writing for many more people than I ever imagined has created a certain general responsibility that is literary and political. There's even pride involved, in not wanting to fall short of what I did before.

  

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  • People
  • Writing
  • Political

• I can ask for a £25,000 advance, but then you spend a year writing the book, and £25,000 is a loan against sales, and you can easily spend five years earning out. So that's £25,000 for six years.

  

  Mal Peet
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Year

• I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.

  

  E. B. White
  • Men
  • Writing
  • Man

• Special-interest magazines are dangerous places for writers to start out in because the writing quickly falls into a routine and people are likely to find themselves artistically exhausted when they want to work on something of their own.

  

  Irwin Shaw
  • People
  • Work
  • Writing

• Whatever's going on with me at the time of writing is going to find its way into the piece. If that doesn't happen, then what the hell am I doing? So if I'm writing 'Inglourious Basterds,' and I'm in love with a girl and we break up, that's going to find its way into the piece.

  

  Quentin Tarantino
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Hell

• Poetry and beauty are always making peace. When you read something beautiful you find coexistence; it breaks walls down.

  

  Mahmoud Darwish
  • Beautiful
  • Peace
  • Poetry

• My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I'm concerned, love is absolutely everything.

  

  Taylor Swift
  • Life
  • Writing
  • Love Is

• Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.

  

  T. S. Eliot
  • Time
  • May
  • Poetry

• I always joke that my kids' favorite holiday is Father's Day. They love the way I celebrate the occasion by writing each of them a thank-you letter and a generous check. It's my way of letting them know how much I appreciate the great pleasure and privilege of being their dad.

  

  Wayne Dyer
  • Great
  • Writing
  • Love

• I'm very physical. When I'm writing, I'm playing all the parts; I'm saying the lines out loud, and if I get excited about something - which doesn't happen very often when I'm writing, but it's the greatest feeling when it does - I'll be out of the chair and walking around, and if I'm at home, I'll find myself two blocks from my house.

  

  Aaron Sorkin
  • Writing
  • Home
  • House

• I made a decision when I started writing 'All is Song' to take the compliments I had for 'The Wilderness' and try to be confident and not overwhelmed by it.

  

  Samantha Harvey
  • Writing
  • Song
  • Decision

• I love the structural part of the writing process.

  

  Kate Morton
  • Writing
  • Process
  • Part

• I would love to continue acting. Maybe one day I would like to try writing and directing.

  

  Kara Hayward
  • Writing
  • Day
  • Like

• We need to develop people rather than process them.

  

  L. Todd Rose
  • People
  • Needs
  • Process

• Perhaps an eccentric is just off centre - ex-centric. But that contradicts a belief of mine that we've got to be centrifugal.

  

  Margaret Rutherford

• We all lived in the same house, or most of us did. And as far as I can make out we were confined to the property, because at twenty-four hours' notice we'd have to do a gig somewhere. So you couldn't leave the building for more than twelve hours in case a gig came through.

  

  Bill Bruford Yes
  • House

• But I still couldn't quite believe in personal life after death. I preferred to think of our psychic experiences as emphasizing, instead, the unknown abilities of our present consciousness. 'The Seth material could be coming from some deep inner source, an intuitive bank of inner knowledge available to everyone if they only look for it,' I said.

  

  Jane Roberts
  • Life
  • Believe
  • Death

• Writing poetry is what I am. I wouldn’t know what else to be.

  

  Alice Notley
  • Writing
  • Poetry
  • To Be