Writing Quotes
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Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.
John le Carre
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If I had had to write only about imaginary people, I would have had to close up my typewriter. I wrote about my life in less and less disguise as I grew older, and finally with no disguise - except the disguise we create for ourselves, which is self-deception.
William Maxwell
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I have dictated stories from an airport after writing the story out in longhand on the plane that I got from phone interviews and then was applauded by editors for 'working magic.'
Rick Bragg
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Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.... [W]hat can we bequeath, Save our deposed bodies to the ground?... [N]othing can we call our own, but death... [L]et us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings: - How some have been depos'd, some slain in war; Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd.
William Shakespeare
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There are two kinds of typical days. There's the typical day when I'm writing a novel, and there's the typical day when I'm not.
Paul Auster
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Don't fake enthusiasms. Say what you think, not what you think you ought to think.
Darcy O'Brien
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My publishers find me really challenging, as a lot of the time, I don't even know what I'm going to be writing about until I sit down to do it.
Lisa Jewell
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I'm sort of killing two birds with one stone here, getting to write for "True Blood" and being able to put myself in a comic at the same time.
Michael McMillian
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Television is a new, hard test of our wisdom. If we succeed in mastering the new medium it will enrich us. But it can also put our mind to sleep. We must not forget that in the past the inability to transport immediate experience and to convey it to others made the use of language necessary and thus compelled the human mind to develop concepts. For in order to describe things one must draw the general from the specific; one must select, compare, think. When communication can be achieved by pointing with the finger, however, the mouth grows silent, the writing hand stops, and the mind shrinks.
Rudolf Arnheim
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My creative process involves reading books and magazines, writing outside, and moving around a lot. I like to pace around when I'm writing songs.
Judith Hill
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Saul Bellow once said, 'A writer is a reader who has moved to emulation' — which I think is true. I just started writing and made that jump from reader to writer and learned how hard it was, but also how much fun it was — losing myself in these imaginary worlds.
Stewart O'Nan
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When I started writing, I didn't have the common sense to use a pseudonym, so I write under my own name. If I did have a pen name, though, it would be something very historical - something that sounds very sort of Regency... Sophia something.
Nicola Cornick
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I'm writing all the books I wish I had when I was a kid.
Jason Reynolds
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I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten hours a week writing. The writing is going on all the time in my head; the trick is to capture it. Showers are great. Traffic jams are great.
Julia Glass
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Most difficult thing in the world, to write a play. Do you know the story of Shaw at the Fabian society? H.G. Welles said "I'm terribly sorry I've missed the last five meetings, I've been terribly busy, I'm engaged in writing a scientific pamphlet on the effects of radioactivity in 1984 and I've produced a novel, and various pieces of science fiction to do, and I've had a bit of personal trouble, and I had my copy to bring out for the newspaper." Shaw leapt up and said, "I've not missed one meeting, and I have written a play!" hardest thing in the world. If it were easy they'd all be at it.
Peter O'Toole
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Unfortunately, most news writing is the product of a first draft culture.
Michael Gartner
