Writing Quotes

• I deal with emotional pain through therapy, writing, therapy in music. I think emotional pain is best dealt with when you use art to express it.

  

  Naturi Naughton 3LW
  • Art
  • Pain
  • Emotional

• Back in my 20s, when I wrote 'A Place of Greater Safety,' the French Revolution novel, I thought, 'I'll always have to write historical novels because I can't do plots.'' But in the six years of writing that novel, I actually learned to write, to invent things.

  

  Hilary Mantel
  • Revolution
  • Novel
  • Historical

• A piece of writing is like a piece of magic. You create something out of nothing.

  

  Susanna Clarke
  • Magic
  • Nothing
  • Create

• Too many poets write poems which are only difficult on the surface, difficult because the dramatic situation is easily misunderstood. It's not difficult to write poems that are misunderstood. A drunk, a three-year-old-they are easily misunderstood. What is difficult is being clear and mysterious at the same time. The dramatic situation needs to be as clear in a poem as it is in a piece of good journalism. The why is part of the mystery, but the who, what, where, and when should all be understood.

  

  Miller Williams
  • Mystery
  • Mysterious
  • Drunk

• I start with characters, and then I start writing, and then, if I'm lucky, things start to happen.

  

  Susan Choi
  • Writing
  • Characters
  • Happen

• I've probably put my 10,000 hours into writing, but I believe writing well is also greatly influenced by certain intangibles like mood and inspiration.

  

  Bill Loguidice
  • Writing
  • Inspiration
  • Mood

• When I think of folk music, I think of topical songs. And I don't write topical songs.

  

  Ray LaMontagne
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Song

• The Blood of Heroes is surely the best account to date, one that presents plenty of new insights while acting as a corrective-or at least an alternative viewpoint-to previous accounts....Donovan combines that vital blend of authoritative scholarship with the vivid writing necessary to make an oft-told tale seem fresh.

  

  William C. Davis
  • Accounts
  • Insight
  • Alternatives

• Some say writing is its own reward. I write for money, but writing for money is not so bad, especially when that writing brings you joy.

  

  Eloisa James
  • Money
  • Joy
  • Reward

• In my writing class, we never, ever talk about the writing - ever. We never address a story that's been read. I also won't let anyone look at the person who's reading. No eye contact; everybody has to draw a spiral. And I would like to do a drawing class where we could talk about anything except for the drawing. No one could even mention it.

  

  Lynda Barry
  • Writing
  • Reading
  • Drawing

• The most difficult thing in music is still to write a melody of several bars which can be self-sufficient. That is the secret of music. While the technique should be as perfected as possible, that is a lesser essential Anybody can acquire a brilliant technique Melody alone permits a work to survive.

  

  Darius Milhaud
  • Difficult
  • Survive
  • Brilliant

• What makes for great art is the courage to speak and write and paint what you know and care about.

  

  Audrey Flack
  • Art
  • Care
  • Speak

• I don't claim anything of the work. It is his work. I am like a little pencil in his hand. That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it.

  

  Mother Teresa
  • Thinking
  • inspirational
  • Pencils

• For me, practice isn't doing scales but doing things like writing, jamming with other people, or playing gigs.

  

  Tommy Bolin
  • People
  • Practice
  • Scales

• The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy The books that people talk about we never can recall And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of all.

  

  Carolyn Wells
  • Book
  • Worst
  • Ashamed

• You'd hope that no writing about music could supersede the music itself. But I do think that blogs mirror the way that we are listening. It comes at you fast and it's timely and then five minutes later we're on to something else. It caters to our desire for instant gratification. And I think blogs also have fluidity that's exciting. You have a lot of real enthusiastic music fans for the most part that are writing sometimes for a large audience, and I think certain blogs have a little too much power over what someone likes or doesn't like.

  

  Carrie Brownstein
  • Thinking
  • Writing
  • Real

• They've been screaming about the death of literacy for years, but I think TV is the Gutenberg printing press. I think TV is the only thing that keeps us vaguely in democracy even if it's in the hands of the corporate culture. If you're an artist you write in your time. Moaning about the fact that maybe people read more books a hundred years ago - that's not true. I think the same percentage has always read.

  

  Sherman Alexie
  • People
  • Thinking
  • Book

• There is a huge difference between writing a book, which is a private activity I engage in with myself, and wanting to engage in overly intimate personal conversations with strangers, which I pretty much never want to do.

  

  Michelle Tea
  • Differences
  • Conversation
  • Stranger

• If you really hate me, you should at least have the courtesy to take out a piece of paper and write it down and mail it to me. If you're a worthy nemesis, I want to see your handwriting. I want to see your name and your address, and if you don't have the guts to give me those, then you're not a worthy nemesis.

  

  Kathleen Hanna Bikini Kill
  • Writing
  • Giving
  • Hate

• To win the trophy of enchanting grace: Ranks of Carnations, to all ladies dear, Of whose sweet taste I write approval here, For these pre-eminent myself I think, As long as you don't overdue the pink.

  

  Ruth Pitter
  • Winning
  • Sweet
  • Flower

• If you want to write, you have to be willing to be disturbed.

  

  Kate Green
  • Writing
  • Want
  • Disturbed

• I don't really write journals and stuff and then adapt them to music, it's completely within the form of the song. My great obsession and basically the bane of my existence is caring probably too much about every word, but it's too late to change my career path.

  

  Emily Haines Broken Social Scene
  • Song
  • Path
  • Existence

• When you're writing something new, writing something that's your own, basically you have nothing else to do except either invent a trick, use someone else's trick, or have no trick and get a bad performance.

  

  Nico Muhly
  • Writing
  • Performance
  • Trick

• Writing has been challenging at times but that's where all the growth is. I know I'm in the right place if it's difficult. Something a British writer said to me once was: "If the project doesn't make him wobble, he doesn't take it." You have to be uncomfortable to grow.

  

  Geoff Thompson
  • Writing
  • Growth
  • Challenging

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