A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“A writer's job is to tell the truth.”
“A writer's life is so hazardous that anything he does is bad for him. Anything that happens to him is bad: failure's bad, success is bad; impoverishment is bad, money is very, very bad. Nothing good can happen... Except the act of writing.”
“A writer's life stands in relation to his work as a house does to a garden, related but distinct.”
“A writer's mind seems to be situated partly in the solar plexus and partly in the head.”
“A writer's notebook is the best way in the world to immortalize bad ideas. My idea about a good idea is one that sticks around and sticks around and sticks around.”
“A writer's occupational hazard: I think of eavesdropping as minding my business.”
“A writer's problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and having found what is true, to project it is such a way that it becomes a part of the experience of the person who reads it.”
“A writer's self-consciousness, for which he is much scorned, is really a mode of interestedness, that inevitably turns outward.”
“A writer's style reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacites, his bias...it is the Self escaping into the open.”
“A writer's subconscious is one of the filthiest places there are: as a matter of fact, you can find the whole world there.”
Source: The Dance of Genghis Cohn
“A writer's temperament is continually making him do things he can never repair.”
Source: Fitzgerald: My Lost City: Personal Essays, 1920-1940
“A writer's voice is not character alone, it is not style alone; it is far more. A writer's voice line the stroke of an artist's brush- is the thumbprint of her whole person- her idea, wit, humor, passions, rhythms.”
“A writer's work has to take account of many rhythms: Vulcan's and Mercury's, a message of urgency obtained by dint of patient and meticulous adjustments and an intuition so instantaneous that, when formulated, it acquires the finality of something that could never have been otherwise. But it is also the rhythm of time that passes with no other aim than to let feelings and thoughts settle down, mature, and shed all impatience or ephemeral contingency.”
Source: Six Memos for the Next Millennium
“A writer's work is the product of laziness.”
“A writer's work is to witness things.”
Source: Tigers & Ice: Reflections on Nature and Life
“A writer's work may be a coded autobiography, but only a very close friend could decipher it.”
Source: In My Own Time: Almost an Autobiography
“A writer's work often reflects what he or she has been exposed to in life; experiences which are the groundwork of a poem or a story.”
“A writer's working hours are his waking hours. He is working as long as he is conscious and frequently when he isn't.”
Source: A Kind of Magic
“A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.”
Source: Susan Sontag: Ansprachen aus Anlass der Verleihung
“A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world. That means trying to understand, take in, connect with, what wickedness human beings are capable of; and not be corrupted - made cynical, superficial - by this understanding.”
Source: Susan Sontag: Ansprachen aus Anlass der Verleihung
“A writer, like a sheriff, is the embodiment of a group of people and without their support both are in a tight spot.”
Source: Death Without Company: A Walt Longmire Mystery
“A writer, or a beginning writer, is faced by the huge walls of self-consciousness. Most people think, "What if I say the wrong thing? What if I don't sound erudite and sophisticated? I'll be considered a fool." In time, with a lot of practice, you realize that's your foolishness is your gift.”
“A writer, or any artist, can’t expect to be embraced by the people [but] you just keep doing your work - because you have to, because it’s your calling.”
“A writer, or any man, must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument; everything has been given for an end. This is even stronger in the case of the artist. Everything that happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one's art. One must accept it.”
Source: Seven Nights
“A writer, or at least a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: “Whom do you write for?” The question is, of course, a silly one, but I can give it a silly answer. Occasionally I come across a book which I feel has been written especially for me and for me only. Like a jealous lover I don’t want anybody else to hear of it. To have a million such readers, unaware of each other’s existence, to be read with passion and never talked about, is the daydream, surely, of every author.”
“A writer/director is a tough thing to gauge when someone hasn't directed a movie before. You just don't know. Sometimes it will be a great script that's written beautifully, and then the director who has also written it does not have the facility to translate it.”
“A writers desire to write can only have come from previous experience of literature, and he'll start by imitating whatever he's read, which usually means what the people around him are writing.”
Source: The Northrop Frye Quote Book
“A writers job is to destroy and then to build the thing back up again by a chosen means.”
“A writers life is, in a nutshell, arduous. The journey, however, wholly fulfilling. Take time to celebrate life. To embrace love. To relish those small victories for they are indeed rare for a storyteller. To wholeheartedly pursue your happiness unapologetically. In the end, both you and your literature, in an unbroken rhythm, will be seamlessly integrated.”
“A writers mind is often promiscuous
and his words adventurous .”
“A writer’s job is to cultivate what can go wrong.”
“A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him.”
“A writer’s promise is like a tiger’s smile”
“A writing cook and a cooking writer must be bold at the desk as well as the stove.”
“A writing may be lost; a lie may be written; but what the eye has seen is truth and remains in the mind!”
Source: Joseph Conrad Ultimate Collection: 18 Novels, 20+ Short Stories, Letters & Memoirs: Including Classics like Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Duel, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Victory, The Shadow-Line & Under Western Eyes
“A writing teacher once told me that the most successful movies and books were simple plots about complex characters. You should be able to articulate your concept in a couple of lines.”
“A written constitution is needed to protect values AGAINST prevailing wisdom.”
Source: Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice
“A written discourse on any subject is bound to contain much that is fanciful.”
Source: Plato: Phaedrus
“A written regulation in NASCAR is about as reliable as an Egyptian immigration law.”
Source: NASCAR Off the Record
“A written retirement plan provides an evolving foundation of social purpose and direction for personal growth.”
Source: Creative Retirement for Women
“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; -- not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.”
Source: Walden or, Life in the Woods
“A wrong action may not bring its reaction at once, even as fresh milk turns not sour at once: like a smouldering fire concealed under ashes it consumes the wrongdoer, the fool.”
“A wrong attitude toward nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude toward God.”
Source: Christianity and Culture
“A wrong attitude towards nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God, and that the consequence is an inevitable doom. For a long enough time we have believed in nothing but the values arising in a mechanized, commercialized, urbanized way of life: it would be as well for us to face the permanent conditions upon which God allows us to live upon this planet.”
“A wrong choice thwarts God’s original intention”
“A wrong company will cost you immensely. It can steal your victory. Pray for the wisdom to identify and align with the right company.”
Source: A Manual for Victory
“A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego.”
“A wrong decision isn't forever; it can always be reversed. The losses from a delayed decision are forever; they can never be retrieved.”
Source: A life in our times: memoirs
“A wrong door that closes on you is better than one that stays open unnecessarily, for it saves you from a path not meant to be.”
Source: Beyond the Closed Door: Unique Keys to Unlock Destinies
“A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.”
Source: The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe