Best lines & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes. So for me, writing from a male point of view would be a great challenge, that I would look forward to taking on.”

People Needs Should Writing Believe Looks Play Character Would Be Able I Believe Social Challenges Lines Views Class Crosses Males Gender Point Of View Good Writers Social Class Chameleon

Author:Marisha Pessl

“I can't start writing until I have a closing line.”

Writing I Can Lines Closing

Book:Conversations with Joseph Heller

Source: Conversations with Joseph Heller

“I know when a story is finished when there is not a single thing more I can think to do to it. And since I know at the start what the last line will be, I know when I've reached that point as logically as I can that it's finished. As for the rewriting-it's not foolproof, of course, but if you're honest about having thought of every possibility and you still come back to what you have, what more can you do?”

Ifs Thinking Knows Writing Stills I Can Stories Lasts Courses Lines Honest Possibility Finished Rewriting Foolproof

Author:Amy Hempel

“Anyone who goes into writing has to find out somewhere along the line, he's either naive or insane.”

Writing Lines Insane Naive

Book:Mitla Pass

Source: Mitla Pass

“I come from a long line of people that write. My folks ran a weekly newspaper.”

People Writing Long Lines Folks Newspapers Ran Long Lines

Author:Sam Wyly

“Imagination, it turns out, is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something from nothing, which means, in one sense, that none of it is true. Yet in the writing, and perhaps in the reading, some of a character's actions or lines are truer than others.”

Writing Mean Character Action Turns Reading Imagination Lines Deals Fiction Paradox Fiction Writing

Author:Amy Waldman

“The single most important technique for making progress is to write ten words. Doesn't matter if you're badly stuck, or your day is completely jam-packed, or you're away from your computer - carry a small paper notebook and write a sentence of description while you're waiting on line at a coffee shop. I think of this as baiting a hook. Even if you have a few days in a row where nothing comes except those ten words, I find that as long as you have to think about the novel enough to write ten words, the chances are that more will come.”

“Why do I find it hard to write the next line?”

Writing Hard Next Lines

Author:Gary Kemp

“When you write a two thousand page history of the Second World War, the deportations and the concentration camps will take up five pages, and the gas chambers perhaps 20 lines.”

World Writing Two War Lines Five Thousand Pages War Of The Worlds Gas Concentration Camps Chamber Second World War Concentration Camp Deportation Gas Chambers

Author:Jean-Marie Le Pen

“I’ll write down little lines, I always say, 'K.T.N.,' and I say that to my receivers and running backs and that means 'keep taking notes.' That keeps me alert. That keeps me going. That keeps my drive there, even when you’re taking notes on something that you’ve already taken notes on a million times - keep taking notes.”

Writing Mean Littles Running Lines Millions Taken Notes Receiver Running Back Already Taken

Author:Russell Wilson

“It is the first line that gives the inspiration and then it's like riding a bull. Either you just stick with it, or you don't.”

Giving Writing Firsts Inspiration Lines Sticks Riding Bulls

Author:Bob Dylan

“I wanted to take my writing to another level. I wanted to write stuff that was personal for real. It's one thing to write a lyric that sounds nice in that line - that's not very tricky - but it's a different thing to write something that sounds nice and actually comes from someplace real.”

Writing Different Real Wanted Stuff Sound Lines Levels Nice One Thing Different Things Tricky

Author:Tove Styrke

“From the opening lines, Sleeping with Schubert is a hilarious, whimsical romp through the looking glass of a great musical mystery. The writing snaps, crackles, and pops with humor as Bonnie Marson makes Schubert a sexy, happening kind of guy who gives new meaning to our dreaming the impossible.”

Giving Writing Kind Dream Guy Lines Sleep Impossible Mystery Happenings Musical Glasses Sexy Pops Opening Snaps Great Music Whimsical Through The Looking Glass Schubert

Author:Jonis Agee

“There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line. It's tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don't think conceptually while I work on a first draft -- I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.”

Thinking Knows Want Should Writing Trying Firsts Littles Ideas Stories Lines One Thing Theory Reader Tough Opening Invites Tricky Jars Moonbeams

Author:Stephen King

“There are three things a man must do before his life is done; Write two lines in APL, And make the buggers run.”

Men Writing Two Done Running Life Is Three Lines Three Things

Book:The Computer Contradictionary

Source: The Computer Contradictionary

“Natalie Lyalin is writing some of the best poems in the world. There is an evil in her gorgeous poem-hearts. She must have sold her heart to the devil to write like this—so beautiful, so funny and so strange. Her images stack and stack down the page without spilling, each line such a bombshell you'll start reading backward to the first line. These poems are like babies—they will pop out of trees.”

World Writing Firsts Heart Beautiful Evil Reading Lines Tree Strange Baby Pages Devil Pops Gorgeous Spilling Bombshells Best Poem

Author:Zachary Schomburg

“I've been trying to write for as long as I can remember. But those first fifteen years didn't produce much of great interest. I mean, it embarrasses me very much to look back on my early poems--very few lines of any merit at all and lots of affectation. But there were quite a lot of them. That's a point in one's favor.”

Writing Trying Years Firsts Looks Mean Long I Can Remember Interest Lines Produce Favors Merit Fifteen Fifteen Years

Author:Kingsley Amis

“Some celebrities, it's interesting, because they're fantastic playing a character when somebody is writing the lines for them, and they're amazing actors, but they're not as comfortable on television in front of a live audience and just having a conversation and being themselves.”

Writing Character Actors Lines Interesting Audience Fronts Television Conversation Comfortable Fantastic

Author:Ellen DeGeneres

“There is a fine line I have to walk throughout the writing process in a novel. It is this line between drama and melodrama, and it is this line between evoking genuine emotional power and being manipulative.”

Writing Process Lines Walks Novel Emotional Fine Drama Genuine Writing Process Fine Lines Melodrama Manipulative Emotional Power

Author:Nicholas Sparks

“Find a business mentor. Connect with others who are successful in other lines of business. Bounce ideas off them, pick their brains. Maybe they can re-write a proposal for you.”

Writing Ideas Lines Business Brain Successful Picks Mentor Proposal Bounce

Author:Cory Trepanier

“It always seems to someone outside the business that it is very difficult to write for a comedy show because it must be done quickly. Actually, it is much easier to write this humor than to do a joke or a show from scratch, because the audience knows the plot. Just mention what is going on and then deliver the punch line.”

Knows Writing Done Shows Seems Difficult Lines Audience Comedy Easier Jokes Plot Scratches Comedy Shows

Author:Robert Orben

“Freud believed that our dreams sometimes recapitulate a speech, a comment we've heard or something that we've read. I always had compositions in my dreams. They would be a joke, a piece of a novel, a witticism or a piece of dialogue from a play, and I would dream them. I would actually express them line by line in the dream. Sometimes after waking up I would remember a snatch or two and write them down. There's something in me that just wants to create dialogue.”

Want Writing Two Sometimes Play Dream Would Be Remember Lines Novel Pieces Heard Speech Jokes Wake Up Dialogue Comment Waking Composition Our Dreams

Author:David Mamet

“As I write, Johnny Rotten's first moments in "Anarchy in the U.K." - a rolling earthquake of a laugh, a buried shout, then hoary words somehow stripped of all claptrap and set down in the city streets - I AM AN ANTICHRIST - Remain as powerful as anything I know. Listening to the record today - listening to the way Johnny Rotten tears at his lines, and then hurls the pieces at the world; recalling the all-consuming smile he produced as he sang - my back stiffens; I pull away even as my scalp begins to sweat.”

“When people say "How do you write a book, how does it all happen?" I say, you line things up, and you line them up as actually as you possibly can, but sooner or later the book has got momentum and it's moving along under that momentum. It's like a sculpture, if you're working with the grain of the wood, the wood will start defining what shape it's going to become.”

People Ifs Writing Doe Book Happens Moving Lines Shapes Woods Grain Sooner Or Later Sculpture Defining Momentum

Author:Terry Pratchett

“You may write twenty lines one day--or even three like Euripides in three days--and a hundred lines in one more day--and yet on the hundred, may have been expended as much good work, as on the twenty and the three.”

Writing May Has Beens Three Lines One Day Hundred Twenties Good Work One More Day

Book:The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 1845-1846

Source: The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 1845-1846

“If there's a character type I despise, it's the all-capable, all-knowing, physically perfect protagonist. My idea of hell would be to be trapped in a four-hundred page, first-person, first-tense, running monologue with a character like that. I think writers who produce characters along those lines should graduate from high school and move on.”

“Cognitive consonance is what writing in the Age of the idiot is all about. The key to success in the scribbling profession is to strike the right balance of mediocrity in writing and thinking, which invariably entails echoing one of two party lines, poorly.”

Thinking Writing Two Age Lines Party Keys Balance Profession Strikes Idiot Mediocrity Key To Success Cognitive Consonance Writing And Thinking

Author:Ilana Mercer

“Your life is truly your life… it belongs to you. It is your story to write with love. Day by day, line by line, write it well”

Writing Wells Stories Life Is Lines

Author:Lance Wubbels

“But when I saw the cursive grace of Guido Rahr's fly line writing prayers I couldn't read to the river gods of Outer Mongolia, I knew my name was written there too. Fly fishing was going to be my version of my father's sport, my nod to my Scottish ancestors and to my self, and to the fish crazed part of America I had claimed as my own.”

Writing Self America Father Names Sports Lines My Own Prayer Saws Grace Written Sea Rivers Fishes Versions Boat Lakes Fishing Ancestor Scottish Fly Fishing Mongolia Cursive Guidos

Author:Jessica Maxwell

“I'm opening a store at the end of the month in the New York meatpacking district. I'm launching a line of bedding this summer, and I am writing a book that will be out next January.”

Writing Book Ends Artist Next Lines New York Months Summer Stores Opening Writing A Book January Launching Bedding

Author:Genevieve Gorder

“'Now I've tasted chocolate I'm not going back'. That's a great line. That's not me, that's all the writing. I mean it's like it doesn't matter who plays it, it's a great role. It's such a funny, tongue in cheek kind of great role.”

Writing Kind Mean Matter Play Lines Roles Tongue Chocolate Cheeks Tongue In Cheek

Author:Amanda Bynes

“To all the staff members that take care of us every single day, From Donnie Strack, to Joe Sharpe, Tony Katz, Dave Bliss, Josh Longstaff, Will, Wilson, St, Mark, Dwight, I could down the line, All you guys have made me a better player. I wish I had a Sharpie, So I could write all your names on here 'Cause you had a hand on this. You made me believe in myself. You made me a better person, A better player. Your words of encouragement, Your love, Your positivity, Got me through. And I thank you guys.”

“I write books that way - I put a first line down and say, "Where does this go?"”

Way Writing Firsts Doe Book Lines Down And

Author:Carl Reiner

“As an actor, I never really had a strategy. I just take projects, as they come. It all comes down to the writing, at the end of the day, for me. I don't care if it's a two-line cameo or the lead of the thing, as long as the project has some weight behind the writing and it's interesting and I think people will enjoy it.”

People Ifs Thinking Writing Long Two Ends Care Actors Enjoy Lines Interesting Behinds Projects Weight Strategy Don't Care I Don't Care The End Of The Day Cameos

Author:Chris Vance

“[On her political writings:] It is, I confess, very possible that these my Labours may only be destined to line Trunks, or preserve roast Meat from too fierce a Fire; yet in that Shape I shall be useful to my Country.”

Writing May Country Political Lines Fire Shapes Preserves Meat Labour Fierce Destined Trunks Political Writing

Author:Mary Wortley Montagu

“a novel is not born of a single idea. The stories I've tried to write from one idea, no matter how terrific an idea, have sputtered out and died by chapter three. For me, novels have invariably come from a complex of ideas that in the beginning seemed to bear no relation to each other, but in the unconscious began mysteriously to merge and grow. Ideas for a novel are like the strong guy lines of a spider web. Without them the silken web cannot be spun.”

Writing Ideas Matter Stories Guy Three Strong Grows Born Lines Novel Bears Relation Died Complexes Unconscious Chapters Spiders Terrific Spun Spider Web

Author:Katherine Paterson

“Harmony of period and melody of style have greater weight than is generally imagined in the judgment we pass upon writing and writers. As a proof of this, let us reflect what texts of scripture, what lines in poetry, or what periods we most remember and quote, either in verse or prose, and we shall find them to be only musical ones.”

Writing Remember Lines Greater Style Periods Judgment Weight Harmony Musical Proof Scripture Prose Melody Verses

Book:Essays on men and manners; with aphorisms, criticisms, impromptus, fragments, etc

Source: Essays on men and manners; with aphorisms, criticisms, impromptus, fragments, etc

“A romp in the hay lingers like the first line of a song, but your true love is the one you make a life with and write more than a line about, you write a whole book.”

Writing Firsts Book Whole Song Lines Love Is True Love True Love Is Hay

Book:Love Me

Source: Love Me

“Who casts to write a living line, must sweat.”

Writing Lines Casts Sweat

Book:The Works of Ben Jonson

Source: The Works of Ben Jonson

“I hang my laundry on the line when I write.”

Writing Lines Laundry

Author:Joni Mitchell

“In writing a little tragedy, 'The Gaol Gate,' I made the scenario in three lines, 'He is an informer; he is dead; he is hanged.' I wrote that play very quickly.”

Writing Littles Made Play Three Lines Tragedy Gates Scenarios Informers

Book:The Collected Plays: The tragedies and tragic-comedies

Source: The Collected Plays: The tragedies and tragic-comedies

“Writing the opening lines of a story is a bit like starting to ski at the steepest part of a hill. You must have all your skills under control from the first instant.”

Writing Firsts Stories Bits Lines Skills Starting Opening Hills Instant Skis

Book:Our Stories: A Fiction Workshop for Young Authors

Source: Our Stories: A Fiction Workshop for Young Authors

“New Haven cultivates ... an open gloom that seems happy to acknowledge disrepair and the superfluity of appearance. ... I realized that what cramped the town was the weight of unwritten volumes: they scored lines of unfinished writing on every second face that walked the streets.”

Writing Seems Faces Lines Cities Streets Havens Weight Towns Appearance I Realized Acknowledge Volume Gloom Unfinished Every Second Unwritten

Author:Sara Suleri

“Lily Brown writes with and against things in poems that are coiled up tight as springs (or snakes). A believer in the power of the line, she writes, 'I think the plastics/and sink them' then 'Where is the sand/man hiding the dirt.' These terse, biting poems will make you look around and wonder.”

Thinking Men Writing Looks Lines Wonder Spring Believer Brown Sand Hiding Plastic Dirt Snakes Lilies Biting

Author:Rae Armantrout

“Stand-up isn't something I just sit down and start writing - it's ideas you come up with in the shower, while you're driving, waiting in line.”

Writing Ideas Waiting Lines Down And Come Up Driving Showers Waiting In Line

Author:Chris Hardwick

“I wanted to write; I sought all possible paths of personal liberation, but I could never sacrifice a living instant of life for the sake of a line to be written, my balance for the sake of a manuscript, a storm within me for the sake of a poem. I loved life itself too much for this.”

Writing Wanted Lines Path Too Much Written Sacrifice Balance Sake Storm Liberation Instant Manuscripts

Author:Nina Berberova

“My ear is not working, my poetry ear. I can't write a line that doesn't sound like pots and pans falling out of the cupboard.”

Writing I Can Poetry Fall Sound Lines Ears Pot Cupboards Pots And Pans

Author:Jane Kenyon

“Words? I tell you not to write me letters; I command you. Is it not enough to want you so in vain, but you send me what evokes you here before me -- this paper, all along whose lines your hand has lain?”

Want Writing Enough Hands Lines Paper Letters Command Vain Evoke

Book:Nadine and Other Poems

Source: Nadine and Other Poems

“Either I did away with that fear through writing, or in the course of writing, I discovered it was no longer so intrusive or threating. The bottom line is, it's gone.”

Writing Courses Lines Gone Bottom Bottom Line Relay Races

Author:Ingmar Bergman

“I can draw pencil lines to show something is moving, but if I'm writing, I struggle with how to write it. The boy ran down the hallway? The boy ran quickly down the hallway? The boy ran down the marble hallway? I agonize over the words. So my editor works very hard. I'm lucky to have her.”

Ifs Writing I Can Hard Shows Moving Lines Boys Struggle Lucky Draws Ran Editors Pencils Marble Hallways

Author:Brian Selznick

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