Writing Quotes
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My goals as an artist have nothing to do with speaking to an audience. I love to have a good time, but when it comes to poetry I'm not really interested in writing poetry that seeks to entertain or operate safely within the mainstream and, to be clear, I'm not disparaging the really phenomenal work that does - it's just not my interest as a poet.
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Writing teaches writing.
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In short, I do not write for mathematicians, nor as a mathematician, but as an economist wishing to convince other economists that their science can only be satisfactorily treated on an explicitly mathematical basis.
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When I was writing Caramelo the last couple of years, a sixty-hour work week was normal. And now I'm lucky if I have eight hours.
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I wanted to write about the Korean War, but I had no entry into it that made the kind of sense it needs to make for a novelist.
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The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page than the common reader can lap off it with no strain whatsoever on his habitually slack attention.
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The books I'm writing are houses that I build for myself.
Etel Adnan -
Certainly a decade and a half out in the real world, bashing my head against things, probably made me into a more textured writer. It gives you something to write about.
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It's fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats as I am most of the time — for jittery people.
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The hope that they have legs. That's the biggest fear you always have creating new people. You love them, but then they kind of dissipate. Sometimes you don't get to write them as much as you'd like, like me and Harper Row.
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That's something that's really rare and special and what any actor would love - to have somebody that's specifically writing for you.
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The acting background helped a lot when I started writing. I was training for it. In acting class they teach you about the stakes in a scene (and) what motivates characters. When you bring a scene to class - as an actor with your scene partner - you have to do everything. There's no producer, set decorator or anything like that. You and you partner have to do everything and that's kind of like facing the blank page as a writer.
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If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say, 'This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
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I imagine them very clearly and then attempt to describe what I can see. Sometimes I draw them for my own amusement! (talking about her characters and scenes)
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From an early age, my favorite thing to read was novels. For years, when I was writing only nonfiction, still I was reading almost exclusively novels. It's weird to be producing something that you don't consume. It feels really alienating.
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I wanted to write about the third world and had the opportunity to go live in the trenches, so to speak.
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Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.
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Things like guitars and ukuleles, you should never part with it, because there will probably be good, healthy times spent, just playing and writing.
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You know how sometimes you meet writers that are so full of themselves? They feel really proud that they wrote something . But what they don't understand - and I like to tell this to writers - is that writing is like fishing. It's just like fishing. If you don't fish that often, you're not going to catch that many fish.
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I believe in strong legislation for the environment. So the only question is being smart enough and educated enough to scrutinize the people who are writing the legislation, because there are plenty of ulterior motives out there.
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Words are the most powerful thing in the universe... Words are containers. They contain faith, or fear, and they produce after their kind.
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The first Chapter Law is, "Don't spend much time on it. You're going to have to rewrite it."
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Writing from a character is really fun - sometimes you can be more honest through somebody else's perspective.
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I feel very strong about 'Brother.' This is me. I've been writing with a much more free sky, open and free.
