Best half & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“The first four and a half years was me in the studio every day, writing songs for other people. I had jobs, too - eleven jobs. I worked at Kinko's, Fatburger, Subway - I was a sandwich artist - and I was a claims processor at Allstate Insurance.”

People Writing Years Firsts Jobs Artist Song Half Four Claims Studios Sandwiches Eleven Writing Songs Subway Half A Year Processors

Author:Frank Ocean

“To disguise nothing, to conceal nothing, to write about those things that are closest to our pain, our happiness; to write about our sexual clumsiness, the agonies of Tantalus, the depth of our discouragement-what we glimpse in our dreams-our despair. To write about the foolish agonies of anxiety, the refreshment of our strength when these are ended; to write about our painful search for self, jeopardized by a stranger in the post office, a half-seen face in a train window, to write about the continents and populations of our dreams, about love and death, good and evil, the end of the world.”

“Chairman Mao not only introduced Pinyin in China, but also simplified half the Chinese characters, believing that fewer strokes would enable more people to learn to write the characters.”

People Writing Believe Character Half China Chinese Fewer Strokes Chairman Mao Chairman Mao

Author:David Tang

“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.”

World Giving Writing Made Real Half Decades Real World

Author:Richard K. Morgan

“When I am writing, I focus one hundred percent on my writing. Then, by the time I'm half way through the book, I'm already thinking about the ending.”

Thinking Way Writing Book Half Focus Percent Hundred Half Way

Author:Anita Desai

“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

“Should novels generally be 600 pages? No, they should not. Half of writing, maybe 3/4 of writing, is editing. This seems to be a thing that has not gotten through to them. It's my impression that you could get rid of half of most of these books. These people are not good enough to be this long, but they're apparently also not good enough to be shorter.”

People Should Writing Long Book Enough Seems Half Novel Pages Impression Good Enough Editing Not Good Enough

Author:Fran Lebowitz

“I must try to set aside half an hour in some part of my day, and consecrate it to diary writing. Give it a name and a place, and then perhaps, such is the human mind, I shall come to think it a duty, and disregard other duties for it.”

Thinking Giving Writing Trying Mind Humans Names Hours Half Duty Human Mind Diaries Disregard

Author:Virginia Woolf

“By the time you write the last page you have done half the book. The other half tends to get done in about five weeks; I do several drafts, very, very furiously rewriting. I literally do more or less nothing else and I stick with it and go through it and I begin to hate it.”

Writing Book Done Lasts Hate Half Five Week Pages Sticks Other Half Rewriting

Author:Terry Pratchett

“A theme that appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts many people in modern society.”

People Writing Social Half Modern Century Critics Theme 20th Century Modern Society Purposelessness

Book:The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future

Source: The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future

“The wisest man I ever knew in my whole life could not read or write. At four o'clock in the morning, when the promise of a new day still lingered over French lands, he got up from his pallet and left for the fields, taking to pasture the half-dozen pigs whose fertility nourished him and his wife.”

Men Writing Stills Whole Left Half Morning Four Wife Land Fields Promise Whole Life Clock Dozen Pigs New Day Wisest Fertility Pastures Wisest Man Pallets

Author:Jose Saramago

“When the press writes scare stories about the global labor supply draining jobs from rich to poor places, the story is usually presented as a "race to the bottom" simply in terms of wages. Capitalism supposedly looks for labor wherever labor is cheapest. This story is half wrong. A kind of cultural selection is also at work, so that jobs leave high-wage countries like the United States and Germany, but migrate to low-wage economies with skilled, sometimes overqualified workers.”

Source: The Culture of the New Capitalism

“Many leave the labours of half their life to their executors and to chance, because they will not send them abroad unfinished, and are unable to finish them, having prescribed to themselves such a degree of exactness as human diligence can scarcely ontain.”

Writing Humans Chance Half Degrees Labour Diligence Unfinished Exactness Executors

Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius

Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius

“Basically it takes me very little time to write a song. If I find myself taking more than an hour to do it I usually forget it, and try something else. I like to work quickly; I never like to waste any time. I never write half a song and come back to it later at all. It all has to be done at once. I lose interest if it doesn't.”

Ifs Writing Trying Littles Done Song Interest Hours Loses Forget Half Waste Take Me Forget It Little Time

Author:Bernie Taupin

“If an editor can only make people angry enough, they will write half his newspaper for him for nothing.”

People Ifs Writing Enough Half Angry Newspapers Editors

Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton

Source: The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton

“No one was more important to the game of baseball in the last half of the 20th century than Henry Aaron and no one writes about that supremely talented man, that tumultuous time and this treasure of a game better than Howard Bryant. Together, they are an extraordinary combination, and the book Bryant has written gets to the heart of the complicated and dignified, patient and consistent genuine hero that is Henry Aaron.”

Men Writing Heart Important Book Together Lasts Games Half Written Century Hero Baseball Extraordinary Patient Complicated Treasure Genuine Combination Consistent 20th Century

Author:Ken Burns

“Improvisation, it is a mystery. You can write a book about it, but by the end no one still knows what it is. When I improvise and I'm in good form, I'm like somebody half sleeping. I even forget there are people in front of me. Great improvisers are like priests; they are thinking only of their god.”

People Thinking Knows Writing Stills Book Ends Form Sleep Forget Half Mystery Fronts Priests Improvisation

Book:Jazz Violin

Source: Jazz Violin

“Many friends have said to me, 'I never know when you write your books, because I've never seen you writing, or even seen you go away to write.' I must behave rather as dogs do when they retire with a bone; they depart in a secretive manner and you do not see them again for an odd half hour. They return self-consciously with mud on their noses. I do much the same.”

Knows Writing Said Book Self Hours Half Dog Return Bones Noses Odd Behave Going Away Retiring Mud Half Hours Many Friends Secretive

Book:Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

Source: Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

“I think it's just too kinda juicy and compelling to imagine people in their private lives, but then half the time people's private lives are just so much more bizarre and Ted Haggard-like than you could ever imagine. It's almost hard to write fiction anymore.”

People Thinking Writing Hard Half Fiction Imagine Compelling Bizarre Private Life Juicy Haggard

Author:Jerry Stahl

“Buonaparte is certainly writing, or rather dictating, his memoirs. He walks backwards and forwards with his hands behind him, and dictates so fast that two or three of his suite are obliged to be in attendance, that the one may take down one-half of a sentence, and another the rest; they then literally compare notes, and put the disjointed legs and wings and heads of periods together. This is writing a book as he fought a battle.”

Source: The Life of Mary Russell Mitford ; Related in an Selection from Her Letters to Her Friends. Ed. by A.G. Estrange

“Exercise your imagination muscle! How many uses can you come up with for a flowerpot? Write down your answers. But don't write them in this book. Grab a separate sheet of paper. I didn't spend two and a half weeks writing a book just so you could mark up the pages with your silly ideas for things you can do with a flowerpot. When it comes down to it, what's wrong with a flowerpot not being a flowerpot? Why is nothing ever good enough for you?”

Writing Two Book Ideas Enough Use Can Do Imagination Answers Half Week Exercise Paper Pages Mark Come Up Silly Muscles Good Enough Sheets Writing A Book

Author:Amy Sedaris

“Who is writing these screenwriting books? Not actually writing for the studios in Hollywood. These are people that have one or a half of a credit on maybe one movie, or none. So they're all theoretical.”

People Writing Book Half Hollywood Studios Credit Theoretical Writing A Book Screenwriting

Author:Thomas Lennon

“Cartooning is for people who can't quite draw and can't quite write. You combine the two half-talents and come up with a career.”

People Writing Two Half Careers Talent Draws Come Up

Author:Matt Groening

“I used to sit home with my computer and write. After the Newbery, I probably spend more than half my time on the road.”

Writing Home Used Half Computer My Time

Author:Linda Sue Park

“Each of my books has taken me a different length of time to write - eight months for Seesaw Girl, eight months for Shard, three years for When My Name Was Keoko! The publisher takes another year and a half to work on the book, so altogether each book can take up to three or four years to publish.”

Writing Years Book Different Girl Three Names Half Taken Four Months Eight Length Three Years Four Years Publishers Publish Another Year Seesaw

Author:Linda Sue Park

“I suppose half of writing is overcoming the revulsion you feel when you sit down to it.”

Feels Writing Half Overcoming Revulsion

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“Writing, and especially writing a novel, where you get to sit in a room by yourself with either a pen and a paper or a computer for a couple of years, is a very solitary occupation. You can read sales figures - a hundred thousand books sold, half a million books sold - but they are just numbers.”

Writing Years Book Rooms Numbers Half Millions Novel Figures Couple Thousand Paper Computer Hundred Pens Occupation Solitary

Author:Neil Gaiman

“My first published novel, American Rust, took three and a half years of full-time work to write. But I wrote two apprentice novels before that.”

Writing Years Firsts Two Three Half Novel Rust Apprentice Half A Year

Author:Philipp Meyer

“I got the idea that to write books would be the best way to spend a life. I never thought of anything else that seemed like half as much fun, although in my next life I would like to be an architect, too, so I can have an easier time restoring houses.”

Way Writing I Can Book Ideas Would Be Next House Fun Half Easier Best Way Being The Best Architect Restoring Next Life Easier Times

Author:Frances Mayes

“For me, writing for younger audiences and writing for adults uses two different halves of my brain.”

Writing Two Different Use Brain Half Audience Adults

Author:Sara Shepard

“Open this notebook every day and write down half a page at the very least. If you have nothing to write down, then at least, following Gogol’s advice, write down that today there’s nothing to write. Always write with attention and look on writing as a holiday.”

Ifs Writing Looks Today Attention Half Advice Pages Following Holiday Notebook Gogol

Book:Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writing of Daniil Kharms

Source: Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writing of Daniil Kharms

“When I have just sat down and tried to write the lyrics of a song, usually about half of it sounds like bullshit. I just have to go away from something and come back to it again later. I do a lot of editing and switching around and putting little pieces together to get the right mood and personality, and it takes me forever to get a song finished.”

Writing Littles Together Song Sound Half Forever Pieces Personality Down And Finished Mood Sat Going Away Take Me Bullshit Editing Switching

Author:Matt Berninger

“Writing [for the novelist] is not an activity, but a condition. That is why one simply can't resume the work when one has a job and a free half-day. Reading is the conveyance of this condition.”

Writing Jobs Reading Half Conditions Activity Novelists Resumes Half Days

Author:Robert Musil

“Much of the ill-tempered railing against women that has characterized the popular writing of the last two years is a half-heartedattempt to find a way back to a more balanced relationship between our biological selves and the world we have built. So women are scolded both for being mothers and for not being mothers, for wanting to eat their cake and have it too, and for not wanting to eat their cake and have it too.”

World Way Writing Years Two Self Lasts Mother Half Built Ill Two Years Sexism Cake Balanced Being A Mother Scolded Ill Tempered Balanced Relationship

Author:Margaret Mead

“No one can write a best-seller by taking thought. The slightest touch of insincerity blurs its appeal. The writer who keeps his tongue in his cheek, who knows that he is writing for fools and that, therefore, he had better write like a fool, makes a respectable living out of serials and novelettes; but he will never make the vast, the blaring, half a million success. That comes of blended sincerity and vitality.”

Knows Writing Half Fiction Millions Fool Tongue Appeals Sincerity Cheeks Vitality Respectable Serials Blur Sellers Insincerity Best Sellers

Author:Rebecca West

“My big dream back then was to buy an IBM Selectric. I still have that dream. I really ought to buy a word-processor. Half the cabbies at Rocky own computers. They tell me they can write failed novels ten times faster on a PC.”

Writing Stills Dream Bigs Half Novel Ought Ten Computer Faster Ibm Processors

Author:Gary Reilly

“How truly does this journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts--I always write it according to the humour I am in, and if astranger was to think it worth reading, how capricious--insolent & whimsical I must appear!--one moment flighty and half mad,--the next sad and melancholy. No matter! Its truth and simplicity are its sole recommendations.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Doe Real Matter Moments Reading Next Half Humour Mad Simplicity Melancholy Sole Journal Recommendations Capricious Whimsical Worth Reading Insolent

Author:Fanny Burney

“At a tender age, I commandeered half a quire of foolscap from my father's desk and sat down to write a book. ...I had observed onprinted fly leaves the words "By the author of, etc." ...So under the title of my prospective work I wrote: By the author of "Les Miserables," "The Woman in White," "Dombey and Son," "Tom Brown's Schooldays" and "Our Life in the Highlands," the last-named being an opus of good Queen Victoria. I had not read all these works but they existed on our bookshelves, and I hoped to produce something worthy of comparison.”

Writing Book Age Lasts Father White Half Our Lives Produce Son Ambition Worthy Titles Queens Sat Brown Etc Comparison Toms Desks Victoria Bookshelves

Author:Rheta Childe Dorr

“If I spend a year and a half writing a script, the first year will be outlining in notebooks. It's just the way I work, definitely not necessarily the best way.”

Ifs Way Writing Years Firsts Half Scripts Best Way Notebook Outlining

Author:Rian Johnson

“Half the rhymes you write, you're saying that you're better than the other MC. That's how we keep the craft sharp.”

Writing Half Crafts Rhyme

Author:Ice T

“Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day.”

Writing Can Do Hours Half

Author:Robert Hass

“That is what diminishes the artist and his song. The artist is now hermetically sealed. The publishing company got him his deal and they expect to profit from his songs. So what if he is a better singer than a songwriter; let's put him in a room with a real songwriter. Something great is bound to come...except very often nothing great comes out of such contrived match-ups. Nobody knows where a great song comes from, and that's why so many writers credit the Lord as a co-writer (though I notice they never offer Him half the writer's royalties) when they come up with a real gem.”

Ifs Knows Writing Real Artist Song Rooms Deals Half Company Lord Offers Bounds Come Up Profit Credit Singers What If Songwriting Publishing Songwriters Diminish Royalty Nobody Knows Gems

Author:Michael Kosser

“Only half the story is true. The rest is necessary.”

Writing Stories Half Half The Story

Book:Radiant Silhouette: New & Selected Work, 1974-1988

Source: Radiant Silhouette: New & Selected Work, 1974-1988

“The interesting part about the writing process is that you can never see all the way to the end, not if something is happening over the course of a year and a half, or two years.”

Ifs Way Writing Years Two Ends Courses Process Interesting Half Happenings Two Years Writing Process

Author:Tom Perrotta

“If you get the characters right you've done sometimes nearly half the work. I sometimes find I get the characters right then the characters will often help me write the book - not what they look like that's not very important - what people look like is not about their character. You have to describe the shape they leave in the world, how they react to things, what effect they have on people and you do that by telling their story.”

People Ifs World Writing Looks Important Book Sometimes Done Character Helping Stories Half Effects Shapes Help Me

Author:Terry Pratchett

“I write for myself, and perhaps for half a dozen friends. And that should be enough. And that might improve the quality of my writing. But if I were writing for thousands of people, then I would write what might please them. And as I know nothing about them, and maybe I'd have a rather low opinion of them, I don't think that would do any good to my work.”

People Ifs Thinking Knows Should Writing Enough Might Half Quality Opinion Please Lows Dozen

Book:Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations

Source: Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations

“I was actually pretty miserable in high school. I couldn't wait for it to be over. And when it finally was, I remember sitting at graduation with all these classmates getting nostalgic and emotional already and all I could think was, "Get me out of here. I never want to see you people again." So it's ironic that I spend half my day putting myself back there by choice [while writing].”

People Thinking Want Writing School Remember Choices Waiting Half Emotional High School Sitting Miserable Ironic Nostalgic Classmates Want To See You

Author:Sarah Dessen

“I just can't ever be a free spirit and just relax. When it comes to work, this is good. I'm very disciplined, which with writing is often half the battle, or more. But it also means that if I want to, say, play hooky and chocolate and watch Bravo all afternoon, I feel horribly guilty. I wish I could find a nice balance.”

Ifs Want Feels Writing Mean Play Spirit Wish Half Watches Nice Balance Battle Guilty Relax Chocolate Afternoon Free Spirit Bravo

Author:Sarah Dessen

“To create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish.”

Writing Song Half Albums Rubbish

Author:Jason Mraz

“Probably the best way to describe my writing style is to refer you to "purple prose", which was a tag given to the early mass market magazine writers earning a half cent a word for their fiction. They had to use every adjective, verb and adverb in the English language to add word count to stories in order to feed and support families.”

Way Writing Stories Use Order Language Given Half Fiction Support Style Mass Add Best Way Magazines Prose Cents Earning Purple English Language Verbs Tag Adjectives Writing Style Adverbs

Author:Tom Johnson

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