Best expression & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I feel that discussing story-writing in terms of plot, character, and theme is like trying to describe the expression on a face by saying where the eyes, nose, and mouth are.”

Feels Writing Trying Character Stories Eye Faces Term Expression Mouths Noses Theme Plot Discussing Story Writing

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“I am committed to writing appropriate books for the middle grades. This means no bad language, no gratuitous or explicit violence, and no sexual content beyond what you might find in a PG-rated movie – expressions of who likes whom, holding hands, and perhaps the occasional kiss. The idea that we should treat sexual orientation itself as an adults-only topic, however, is absurd. Non-heterosexual children exist. To pretend they do not, to fail to recognize that they have needs for support and validation like any child, would be bad teaching, bad writing, and bad citizenship.”

“Words are changing. I find that old expressions are outdated, so when I write something, I try to find a new expression that hasn't been born yet. It's difficult.”

Writing Trying Difficult Born Expression Outdated

Author:Agnes Denes

“Writing well is at one and the same time good thinking, good feeling, and good expression; it is having wit, soul, and taste, all together.”

Thinking Writing Wells Soul Feelings Together Expression Taste Wit Good Feeling Writing Well Good Thinking Thinking Good

Author:Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

“Writing is an outward expression of instinctive insight that must be summoned from the vastly deep of our mysterious selves. Therefore, it cannot be taught; indeed, it cannot even be summoned; it can only be permitted.”

Writing Self Taught Expression Insight Mysterious

Author:William Hughes Mearns

“What do you think happens to a composer who is sincere and loves to write and has to wait thirty years to have someone play a piece of his music?”

Thinking Writing Years Play Happens Waiting Pieces Expression And Love Thirty Sincere Composer Thirty Years

Author:Charles Mingus

“I've always had a great love of music since childhood. It changes every day.. every time you write, it's a new experience. It's a self expression.”

Writing Self Childhood Expression Great Love Self Expression Music Love New Experiences

Author:Edgar Winter

“To draw does not simply mean to reproduce contours; the drawing does not simply consist in the idea: the drawing is even the expression, the interior form, the plan, the model. Look what remains after that! The drawing is three fourths and a half of what constitutes painting. If I had to put a sign over my door to the atelier, I would write: School of drawing, and I'm certain that I would create painters.”

Ifs Writing Looks Mean Doe Ideas School Form Certain Three Half Plans Doors Painting Expression Models Draws Remains Drawing Painter Interiors

Author:Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

“When you are in deep distress and cannot restrain some expression of it, sit down and write out a harsh letter venting your anger. But don't send it.”

Writing Motivational Expression Letters Down And Distress Harsh Venting

Author:Donald T. Phillips

“If instituted, the TPP's IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you're ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Wells Might Individual Creative Rights Expression One Day Intellectual Ill Farms Regimes Publish Individual Rights Free Expression

Author:Julian Assange

“Creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty.”

Giving Writing Mean Persons Has Beens Wealth Creativity Creative Expression Bird Cooking Dancing Time Spent Creative Expression Bird Watching

Author:Anne Lamott

“Writing has always been my go-to form of expression. Whenever I was going through something as a kid, I would write it down and I would turn it into a poem.”

Writing Kids Form Turns Expression Down And

Author:Jhene Aiko

“I write about what I want to write about, and so the film comes out as a very personal expression even if its subject matter is totally prefabricated.”

Ifs Want Writing Matter Film Subjects Expression Subject Matter Personal Expression

Author:Woody Allen

“No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling.”

Writing Real Feelings Values Expression Genuine Thoughts And Feelings Real Value

Book:Eleanor Roosevelt's My Day: Her Acclaimed Columns, 1936-1945

Source: Eleanor Roosevelt's My Day: Her Acclaimed Columns, 1936-1945

“There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression.”

Ifs Should Writing Persons Self Enough Expression Reader Aim Seven Patient Self Expression

Book:The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature

Source: The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature

“Everyone has doors in the living room of their lives that they assume are locked. Doors that lead to artistic expression. People say "I have no talent -- I can't dance or sing or paint or write poetry or play an instrument." More often than not the doors are not locked, just closed. One may turn the handle, open the door and pass through into a larger life space.”

People Writing May Art I Can Play Turns Space Rooms Doors Talent Expression Instruments Assuming Paint Handle Artistic Locked Living Room Artistic Expression Locked Doors

Author:Robert Fulghum

“At present, I am a poet trying to be a soldier. To tell the truth, I am not interested in writing nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression of something beautiful ... The only sort of book I care to write about the war is the sort people will read after the war is over - a century after it is over.”

People Writing Trying Book War Care Beautiful Century Poet Expression Soldier Telling The Truth Not Interested I Care Something Beautiful

Book:Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems

Source: Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems

“Today in many western countries, nobody dares question the Holocaust whose nature is questionable. According to the reports I have received, in America if people decide to write something against homosexuality on the basis of psychological and sociological principles, they will be prevented from publishing their work. How is it that these people feel obligated to respect freedom of expression?”

“Poetry is creative expression; Prose is constructive expression... by creative I mean original. In Poetry the words are born or reborn in the act of thinking... There is no time interval between the words and the thought when a real poet writes, both of them happen together, and both the thought and the word are Poetry.”

Thinking Writing Mean Real Happens Together Born Creative Poet Expression Originals Prose Poetry Is Constructive Intervals Reborn Creative Expression

Author:Herbert Read

“Remember picture books are the closest form of writing to a poem. Even though they don't have to rhyme, they must be poetic. They must be written so the worst actress can read with comfort and expression.”

Writing Book Remember Form Written Worst Expression Comfort Actresses Poetic Closest Rhyme Picture Books

Author:Kirby Larson

“Long ago, during my apprenticeship in the wine trade, I learned that wine is more than the sum of its parts, and more than an expression of its physical origin. The real significance of wine as the nexus of just about everything became clearer to me when I started writing about it. The more I read, the more I traveled, and the more questions I asked, the further I was pulled into the realms of history and economics, politics, literature, food, community, and all else that affects the way we live. Wine, I found, draws on everything and leads everywhere.”

Way Writing Long Real Found Literature Community Expression Draws Economics Trade Wine Realms Significance Long Ago Traveled Apprenticeship Nexus

Book:A Carafe of Red

Source: A Carafe of Red

“To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the first summons; but such happiness, the greatest genius does not always obtain; and common writers know it only to such a degree, as to credit its possibility. Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.”

Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson: The Adventurer and Idler

“Such expression is impossible in a cramped atmosphere. As I have no desire to offer civil disobedience I cannot write freely. As the author of satyagraha I cannot, consistently with my profession, suppress the vital part of myself for the sake of being able to write on permissible subjects. ... It would be like dealing with the trunk without the head.”

Writing Would Be Able Desire Impossible Atheism Subjects Expression Offers Sake Positive Atheism Profession Atmosphere Consistently Disobedience Civil Disobedience Trunks Satyagraha

Book:Satyagraha: Non-violent Resistance

Source: Satyagraha: Non-violent Resistance

“The whole genius of an author consists in describing well, and delineating character well. Homer, Plato, Virgil, Horace only excel other writers by their expressions and images; we must indicate what is true if we mean to write naturally, forcibly and delicately.”

Ifs Writing Wells Mean Whole Character Expression Genius Plato Describing

Author:Jean de la Bruyere

“A good author, and one who writes carefully, often discovers that the expression of which he has been in search without being able to discover it, and which he has at last found, is that which was the most simple, the most natural, and which seems as if it ought to have presented itself at once, without effort, to the mind.”

Ifs Writing Mind Has Beens Seems Able Lasts Found Natural Simple Effort Expression Ought Good Authors

Author:Jean de la Bruyere

“Every man who speaks out loud and clear is tinting the "Zeitgeist." Every man who expresses what he honestly thinks is true is changing the Spirit of the Times. Thinkers help other people to think, for they formulate what others are thinking. No person writes or thinks alone--thought is in the air, but its expression is necessary to create a tangible Spirit of the Times.”

Source: So Here Then Cometh Pig-pen Pete; Or, Some Chums of Mine

“Why do so many ingenious theorists give fresh reasons every year for the decline of letter writing, and why do they assume, in derision of suffering humanity, that it has declined? They lament the lack of leisure, the lack of sentiment ... They talk of telegrams, and telephones, and postal cards, as if any discovery of science, any device of civilization, could eradicate from the human heart that passion for self-expression which is the impelling force of letters.”

“Writing is primarily a sensuous and creative expression of life.”

Writing Creative Expression Sensuous Creative Expression

Book:Harvest song: collected essays and stories

Source: Harvest song: collected essays and stories

“I believe that - if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression - that you should take on this work like a holy calling.”

Ifs Should Writing Believe Form I Believe Creative Serious Expression Holy Calling

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“... the precedents for feminine self-expression run back through all the ages since the art of writing was invented. ... The era may witness the first female engineer, motor truck chauffeur, radio broadcaster, head of an aviation school, or federal prohibition officer, but it has not produced the first thinking, creative, and writing woman by any means.”

Source: Making Women's History: The Essential Mary Ritter Beard

“there is no 'feminine writing' ... and one makes a mistake is using and giving currency to this expression.”

Giving Writing Mistake Expression Feminine Currency

Book:The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

Source: The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“I love the fact that people can relate to what I'm saying, even if it's not for the same subject I was writing about. That is the power of real music and real expression.”

People Ifs Writing Real Facts Subjects Expression Relate Real Music

Author:Corey Taylor

“While my chosen form of story-writing is obviously a special and perhaps a narrow one, it is none the less a persistent and permanent type of expression, as old as literature itself. There will always be a certain small percentage of persons who feel a burning curiosity about unknown outer space, and a burning desire to escape from the prison-house of the known and the real into those enchanted lands of incredible adventure and infinite possibilities which dreams open up to us, and which things like deep woods, fantastic urban towers, and flaming sunsets momentarily suggest.”

Source: H.P. Lovecraft: The Ultimate Collection (160 Works Including Early Writings, Fiction, Collaborations, Poetry, Essays & Bonus Audiobook Links)

“Suppose we think while we talk or write--I mean, as we normally do--we shall not in general say that we think quicker than we talk, but the thought seems not to be separate from the expression.”

Thinking Writing Mean Seems Expression

Book:Philosophical Investigations

Source: Philosophical Investigations

“Both sex and death are eternal themes. You could make thousands of movies on this theme, and whether you have a human being who is painting, singing, making a film, writing, these are the themes that you will come back to and return to. If you don't have any of these artistic expressions, sex is one of the only gifts that nature gave you for free, so it is very important to celebrate it. And then, with death, we are condemned to that. This is absolutely present in our lives.”

Ifs Writing Humans Important Film Sex Human Beings Our Lives Painting Expression Return Eternal Singing Celebrate Artistic Theme Artistic Expression Sex And Death Film Writing

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Spero Speroni explains admirably how an author who writes very clearly for himself is often obscure to his readers. "It is," he says, "because the author proceeds from the thought to the expression, and the reader from the expression to the thought.”

Writing Expression Reader Obscure Authorship

Author:Nicolas Chamfort

“Don't have conversations taking place in empty space. Weave in background details of where the action (dialogue is a form of "action") is taking place. Don't have invisible people talking, either. Let the reader see them as they speak - their facial expressions and gestures. And by all means "cue" the speeches to the speakers.”

Source: Writing for children and teen-agers

“I think the underlying purpose is expression. It's not about technique, it's not about hitting the right note, writing the perfect prose, having the perfect brushstroke. It's about expression of oneself, the things around you, and the emotions. I think expression is the one word that I would use, whether it's for sorrow, tragedy, joy, or even the need to express and be heard.”

Thinking Needs Writing Use Joy Purpose Perfect Emotion Heard Expression Sorrow Tragedy Notes Oneself Technique Prose Hitting One Word

Author:Charlie Albright

“Acting is the most pure fun as far as jobs go, but it can be limiting in terms of freedom of expression. You are never the master of the story, just a part of it. But writing and directing give you the power of the gods.”

Giving Writing Stories Jobs Fun Term Acting Expression Masters Pure Freedom Of Expression

Author:David Hayter

“I am very present in my work and my work is somehow an expression of my soul, but at the same time I think that a writer cannot write out of nothing.”

Thinking Writing Soul Expression My Soul

Author:Paulo Coelho

“I'd be very suspicious of anybody that seems to have to move to the next level of expression. I distrust that: now I'm writing a book, now I'm being an actor. It should be a natural thing. I think it's a natural thing for you to act. But I think that people that feel that, because they've written one maybe quite beautiful love song that equips them to play Romeo, is probably misguided.”

“We all know the old expression, "I'll work my thoughts out on paper." There's something about the pen that focuses the brain in a way that nothing else does. That is why we must have more writing in the schools, more writing in all subjects, not just in English classes.”

Knows Way Writing Doe School Brain Class Subjects Expression Paper Pens My Thoughts English Class

Author:David McCullough

“Strange! I don't understand how it is that we can write mathematical expressions and calculate what the thing is going to do without being able to picture it.”

Writing Able Strange Expression Mathematical

Author:Richard P. Feynman

“Almost every cartoonist, when he's sitting down to draw a funny face, if you watch him closely, his mouth is gonna curl to the expression that he's drawing. But when I would write a story - I know it's going to sound almost ridiculous and infantile - I would, in a way, start living it.”

Ifs Knows Way Writing Stories Faces Sound Watches Expression Draws Mouths Sitting Drawing Ridiculous Sitting Down Curls Cartoonist Infantile Funny Face

Author:Al Jaffee

“Writing must be a machine for breaking down, that is, allowing the now uncontrolled and uncontrollable reconstitutions of thoughts and expressions. All other kinds of writing simply express.”

Writing Kind Expression Machines Allowing Breaking Down Uncontrollable

Author:Kathy Acker

“A guest at a dinner party observed the strange expression on James Thurber's face. 'Don't be concerned,' said Thurber's wife. 'He's writing.'”

Writing Said Faces Party Wife Strange Expression Concerned Dinner Guests Dinner Party Thurber

Book:For Writers Only: Inspiring Thoughts on the Exquisite Pain and Heady Joy of the Writing Life from Its Great Practitioners

Source: For Writers Only: Inspiring Thoughts on the Exquisite Pain and Heady Joy of the Writing Life from Its Great Practitioners

“My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application-not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech-and learn them so well that words become works.”

“When I began making art, I just thought I liked it. As a woman who was placed in spaces with various conditions, conventions, and restrictions on self-expression, turning to art - whether visual art, writing novels, or writing articles - was to gain freedom from the space around me.”

Writing Art Self Space Novel Conditions Expression Gains Various Visuals Articles Conventions Restriction Self Expression Visual Art

Author:Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook

“What is writing but an expression of my own life?”

Writing My Own Expression My Own Life

Author:Zane Grey

“Writing is a perpetual choice between a thousand expressions, none of which satisfies me, none of which, above all, satisfies me without the others. Yet I ought to know that only music permits a succession of chords.”

Knows Writing Choices Expression Ought Thousand Permit Perpetual Chords Succession

Author:Marguerite Yourcenar

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Expression Quotes