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Writers On Writing Quotes

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Writers On Writing Quotes

“American author F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) wrote a collection of essays entitled “The Crack-Up,” which makes the following astute observation: “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideals in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” For instance, he cites the ability to perceive that the situation is hopeless, and still be determined to make it otherwise. Sensitive people who came before me asked the same disconcerting questions that haunt me. Other troubled souls either drank themselves into oblivion or worked themselves to death in search of the elusive answer to this Fitzgeraldian question: Is it a sign of a lucid mind to place two contradictory ideas abreast and accept the merits of both propositions? Alternatively, is the deliberate act of embracing differing ideas with inapposite conclusions the warning sign of a troubled mind’s impending crackup?”

“Language is a tool that allows us to express our thoughts. We use mechanisms of language including oral storytelling and indicative writing to depict a storehouse of evocative images. Language links our mind’s tawny memory and blooming imagination to the world. Storytelling connects each of us to the consciousness of other people who inhabit this planet.”

“Bad Goodreads reviews are cyberbullying: attacking someone with an undeserved 1 star review and cruel insults. Goodreads bullies trash the author's hard work, just for fun. Simply to inflict pain on a random stranger. The bully feels strong because the author is defenseless and can't fight back, while a part of them is being publicly dragged through the mud.”

“The great and present danger to American literature is the growing homogeneity of our writers, especially the younger generation. Often raised in several places in no specific cultural or religious community, educated with no deep connection to a particular region, history, or tradition, and now employed mostly in academia, the American writer is becoming as standardized as the American car—functional, streamlined, and increasingly interchangeable.”

“People tend to mistake reading and writing with living passively. Words are actions. Language ignites thoughts and channels emotions. Each sentence written by a literary master is an act of rebellion against the intolerable inadequacies and the outrageous injustices of life. Contemplative reading and writing creates channels of empathy and decreases our sense of aloneness. Many liberating social movements trace their origins back to a heart-wrenching piece of literature.”

“Writers allow us to see ourselves more clearly, they express spiritual signposts that assist us find ourselves. Writers’ self-revelations allow us to grasp personal reflections that remain unrealized and indistinct within ourselves. Nuggets of personal perception remain veiled, until we read carefully chosen words sharing the author’s crystallized perceptions. Provocative authors resolutely tap into that robust vein of common yearning and assiduously engineer their way through humankind’s rampant library of collective neurosis. Reading a master’s scintillating prose allows our own inchoate thoughts to shape up under the splendid beam of sunlight that they cast onto pages bearing their soul’s freshly minted words. Their astutely crafted pages conveying everlasting imagery immunizes their work from the harshness of time’s relentless march forward.”

“A writer toils to combat the insufficiency plaguing his or her life. Every writer seeks to ward off the corrosive obliteration wrought by the passage of time upon memory by capturing on paper his or her present day thoughts on life. For these intrepid souls, writing not only entails a lifetime of work it also represents their very lifeblood spilled out onto sheets of virgin white paper. Writers’ inkblot of words forms a pictograph for present and future generations to view; their thoughtful elucidations speak to us from the grave. Writers’ words transcend time by creating indelible images that survive wars, famines, epidemics, and censorship. Thanks to great writers, every man, woman, or child can escape the confines of their own cloistered environment and converse with other people of every occupation and lifestyle whose communal heartbeats form the bloodstream of every city. Thanks to literary figures, each reader can peer into the depths of past generations whose eclectic filament forms the ever-evolving equitable eye in humankinds’ collective consciousness, or colloquially what we refer to as humanity.”

“Writing only to please myself is not self-defeating. Comparable to an apple tree that expends its entire effort attempting to grow and claims no direct interest in the apples that fall from its branches, I hold no interest in harvesting any fruit from the actual work. Akin to the apple tree, I too desire to expand my depth and breadth, by seeking self-actualization and self-realization, using the mentally productive act of writing to branch out from a timbered core. Writing allows me to bud new branches while slithering about at almost an undetectable pace. Reading and writing profoundly influence how a person perceives the ground and the skyline that frames human life.”

“During those times I feel guilty or cut off from producing, I need to remember I am in cocoon mode. Sometimes you just need to binge watch movies or sleep or do nothing at all…for months. But I assure you, that a gorgeous butterfly emerges ready & re-energized; to light up the world with new ideas, content & #writing,”

“When life seems like an uphill task do not ever give up on yourself or on life! Travel to a new place, learn a new language, embrace a new culture, play a musical instrument, read a good book, watch the sunrise, experience the sunset, go for a swim in the river, hug a tree, sit near the lake, or climb a mountain! You will fall in love with life all over again!”

“She texted me 'I love you.' I texted back 'I love you too.' She then texted me 'I love you more.' And I smiled reading her message and texted in reply 'No, I love you more.' Then she texted me 'I love you infinity power infinity power infinity into infinity.' I had no words to reply and smiled looking at her text!”

“...while I sometimes resist the work of writing I resist my own psychic suffering more, and writing has become for me a primary means of digesting and integrating my experiences and thereby reducing the pains of living. Or if not, at least making them useful to myself and to others. There is no pain in my life that has not been given value by the alchemy of creative attention.”

“The Strugglers" He was born on a Friday. And it was raining that day. He still does not know whether the Gods were happy or sad at his arriving on earth. He saw the world. He saw sadness. He saw misery. He saw the struggle of his dad and mom. They both struggled to give a good life to their children. He started becoming serious in life. He started winning awards in academics and in quiz competitions to begin with. Then he tried essay competitions and debates. His sole aim was to win awards to make his parents feel proud of him. He wanted to become an IAS officer to make his family (uncles, aunts, cousins) feel proud of him. He came to Delhi to prepare for the Civil Services. He thought he will do a job and not be dependent on his parents, and still clear the Civil Services. It did not happen. He lost out on becoming a Civil Servant of the people. He tried a few odds jobs. He eventually became a Teacher, Poet, and Writer. His inspirations to writing - his Mom who manages to write Poetry even now along with her struggles of life, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, Franz Kafka, Roald Dahl, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, and all the other poets, artists, writers, and strugglers in Life.”

“The human mind is a product of nature. Resembling other forms of nature, does it follow an ancient code by adhering to universal rules of structure, time, and rhythm? Does the human mind establish through training and education its own pulse, tempo, pace, and lilt? Does reading allow us to witness the rhythm, beat, and intonation of other people’s minds? Does writing allow us to develop, monitor, and train the pulsating pulse of our own surfing mental cadence? Does reading enable us to see the groundswell of our own life refracted through a prism of other people’s storm of words? Does reading depict the upsurge of images and thoughts of a working mind, which casement frames humankind? Does writing spur us to scrutinize the indistinct pictures taken by the viewfinder submerged in our own minds? Does inspired writing draw out of us what composed material binders the structures of our multi-dimensional mind?”

“We must carefully cultivate the voice that speaks to us because an internal voice is the ultimate narrator of our charming and delightful personal story or the documentarian of our tragic and disgraceful plotlines. Stories that we tell ourselves become our functional reality, which format structures the concourse of the nested emotional control panel that guides and girds us through the din of the present.”

“Storytelling entails weaving a narrative out of the disturbing, strange, inspirational, and unremarkable detritus of life. By picking among the litter of our personal experiences to select evocative anecdotes to weave into a narrative format, we reveal which of life’s legendary offerings prove the most sublime to us. Acts of omission are momentous. Our narration of personal sketches divulge what factoids inspire us or do not stir us into action, or contain obdurate truths that prove virtually impossible to crack.”

“...I’ve never understood the logic that says a work doesn’t need to be judged on the quality of its writing or characters simply because its genre. On the other hand, I’ve also never understood the logic of excusing a work from the need to tell a story worth telling about people worth knowing simply because the author writes pretty language or has some insights to offer.”

“Coffee, my delight of the morning; yoga, my delight of the noon. Then before nightfall, I run along the pleasant paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg. For when air cycles through the lungs, and the body is busy at noble tasks, creativity flows like water in a stream: the artist creates, the writer writes.”

“Scroll through a list of books online, and you will find page after page after page of book covers with shirtless guys and titles that scream BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE! or ALPHA-MALE PARANORMAL WEREWOLF ROMANCE! or something equally ridiculous. All these shitty books look like clones of each other. There's not an original thought in sight.”

“Writers and other artistic personalities historically attempted to describe art, what consist of, and inform us how a person creates art. If art is so difficult to describe and quantify, why do we feel compelled to attempt to describe the ineffable? At its core, does all art represent an attempt to communicate the unsayable? Is any discussion about art absurd? Is classifying a piece of writing as literature simply another form of elitism?”

“Talented writers etched the story detailing the travails of broken souls numerous times. The poets recounted an equal amount of times the lucent tears of human laughter and weeping sorrow. Everyone understands bitterness and joy. Conversely, the most evocative aspects of human beings, the bewildering clarification of their ambiguous natures, are virtually indefinable and therefore unutterable. Written testaments to love, truth, beauty, and adoration of nature are inherently weak because words fail to convey what a person experiences inside the spaces that compose their chemical field.”