Cynthia Ozick Quotes

Sometimes writing has to be forced. In starting out, the shape and timbre and texture of what is to come is an uncertain chimera shimmering from behind a veil. You must not wait, loiter, dilly-dally. You must force your way painfully through.

Cynthia Ozick

• Writing

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Quotes to Explore

• The story was such that I couldn't make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning. I could have, but I didn't want to. So, it isn't the most graceful way of writing a story. This new story is, I think, is pretty good stuff. I'm pleased with it anyway.

  

  Jack Vance
  • Good
  • Writing
  • Pretty

• 'Skins' is about a group of teenagers in Bristol, and it's all about what they get up to and all the different things they do. I think it's a good show because it's come from a very real place, and there's a lot of young people involved in the writing.

  

  Hannah Murray
  • People
  • Up
  • Good

• I guess I went into journalism to save the world. I always felt through writing that I wanted to rotate the world slightly.

  

  Carl Honore
  • World
  • Writing
  • Journalism

• All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.

  

  J. M. Coetzee
  • Writing
  • Storytelling

• 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

• 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

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

  

  Natalie Goldberg
  • Writing
  • You
  • Quality

• One of the pleasantest things about book writing is that sometimes it brings one in touch with old friends.

  

  Rachel Field
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Friends

• 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

• 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

• As much as I enjoy traveling and playing on stage as an artist, I really find my true sense of purpose in a room writing a song.

  

  Sam Hunt
  • Writing
  • True
  • Song

• It takes me a long time to write, and I trust myself, so I write very sparsely, so when I do, I know it's good, you know what I mean? Rather than writing a whole bunch and having to sort out what's good and what's not.

  

  Thebe Neruda Kgositsile
  • Time
  • Good
  • Long

• I am truly at my happiest not when I am writing an aria for an actor or making a grand political or social point. I am at my happiest when I've figured out a fun way for somebody to slip on a banana peel.

  

  Aaron Sorkin
  • Writing
  • Fun
  • Political

• There's a rule of writing: if everything is funny, nothing is funny; if everything is sad, nothing is sad. You want that contrast.

  

  J. Michael Straczynski
  • Writing
  • Funny
  • Sad

• Arendt did have a certain snobbishness, though in some of her writing she expressed more democratic attitudes.

  

  Barbara Sukowa
  • Writing
  • Democratic
  • Attitudes

• By the time we enter this work world and we're breadwinners, we enter a world that's just cluttered with spam, fake, digital friends, partisan media, ingenious identity thieves, world-class Ponzi schemers - a deception epidemic.

  

  Pamela Meyer
  • Time
  • World
  • Work

• For me, writing is such an escape, and I felt very lucky to have this to run away to.

  

  Rachel Joyce
  • Writing
  • Me
  • Lucky

• However far fiction writers stray from their own lives and experiences - and I stray pretty far from mine - I think, ultimately, that we may be writing what we need to write in some way, albeit unconsciously.

  

  Wally Lamb
  • Writing
  • May
  • Think

• I shop at thrift shops probably five times a week.

  

  Benjamin Hammond "Ben" Haggerty
  • Week
  • Times
  • Thrift

• I guess there was a little bit of a slight rebellion, maybe a little bit of a renegade desire that made me realize at some point in my adolescence that I really liked pictures that told stories of things - genre paintings, historical paintings - the sort of derivatives we get in contemporary society.

  

  Kara Walker
  • Society
  • Me
  • Desire

• If African farmers can use improved seeds and better practices to grow more crops and get them to market, then millions of families can earn themselves a better living and a better life.

  

  Bill Gates
  • Life
  • Seeds
  • Crops

• Sometimes writing has to be forced. In starting out, the shape and timbre and texture of what is to come is an uncertain chimera shimmering from behind a veil. You must not wait, loiter, dilly-dally. You must force your way painfully through.

  

  Cynthia Ozick
  • Writing