Best Writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 13

Source: Speech of Acceptance Upon the Award of the Nobel Prize for Literature: Delivered in Stockholm on the Tenth of December, Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-seven. [Translated by Justin O'Brien

“Read like mad. But try to do it analytically - which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work.”

Writing Trying Hard Might Novel Figures Conscious Mad Devices Compelling

Author:Sarah Waters

“Never be satisfied with a first draft. In fact, never be satisfied with your own stuff at all, until you're certain it's as good as your finite powers can enable it to be.”

Writing Firsts Facts Certain Stuff Satisfied Finite

Author:Rose Tremain

“There are writers who do start doing the same thing again and again and almost inevitably fall into self-parody.”

Writing Self Fall Again And Again Parody

Author:Tobias Wolff

“Writing is a solitary occupation, and one of its hazards is loneliness. But an advantage of loneliness is privacy, autonomy and freedom.”

Writing Loneliness Advantage Privacy Occupation Solitary Autonomy Hazards

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I have myself always been terrified of plagiarism - of being accused of it, that is. Every writer is a thief, though some of us are more clever than others at disguising our robberies. The reason writers are such slow readers is that we are ceaselessly searching for things we can steal and then pass off as our own: a natty bit of syntax, a seamless transition, a metaphor that jumps to its target like an arrow shot from an aluminum crossbow.”

Writing Reason Bits Reader Shots Metaphor Clever Stealing Target Transition Thieves Terrified Accused Arrows Plagiarism Robbery Syntax Seamless Aluminum Being Accused Crossbows

Author:Joseph Epstein

“Writing is like meditation or going into an ESP trance, or prayer. Like dreaming. You are tapping into your unconscious. To be fully conscious and alert, with life banging and popping and cuckooing all around, you are not going to find your way to your subconscious, which is a place of complete submission.”

Way Writing Dream Prayer Meditation Conscious Unconscious Subconscious Submission Trance Banging Tapping Popping Esp

Author:Carolyn Chute

“I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books.”

Thinking Men Writing Book Young Turns Men And Women Young Man

Author:Paul Auster

“I think a lot of young aspiring writers get misdirected; they think 'I ought to write this, even though I enjoy reading that'. What you have to do is write what you enjoy reading.”

Thinking Writing Young Reading Enjoy Ought Aspiring Writers

Author:Jeffery Deaver

“It is indeed acceptable practice to sometimes split an infinitive. If infinitive-splitting makes available just the shade of meaning you desire or if avoiding the separation creates a confusing ambiguity or patent artificiality, you are entitled to happily go ahead and split!”

Ifs Writing Sometimes Desire Practice Available Separation Shade Acceptable Splits Entitled Avoiding Confusing Ambiguity Patents Splitting Artificiality Infinitive

Book:Lederer on Language: A Celebration of English, Good Grammar, and Wordplay

Source: Lederer on Language: A Celebration of English, Good Grammar, and Wordplay

“We live in a world in which the only utopian visions arrive in commercial breaks: magical visions of an impossibly hospitable world, peopled by bright-eyed attractive men, women, children... Where nobody dies... In my worlds people died. And I thought that was honest. I thought I was being honest.”

People Men World Writing Children Dies Vision Break Honest Died Being Honest Attractive Men Women Utopian Attractive Man

Author:Neil Gaiman

“A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell them to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning.”

Way Writing Said Stories Would Be Asks Fiction Statements Abstract Inadequate

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“We writers don't really think about whether what we write is good or not. It's too much to worry about. We just put the words down, trying to get them right, operating by some inner sense of pitch and proportion, and from time to time, we stick the stuff in an envelope and ship it to an editor.”

Thinking Writing Trying Stuff Worry Too Much Sticks Ships Proportion Editors Envelopes

Author:Garrison Keillor

“We sat around on a hotel balcony with a bottle of wine and tried to figure out how you would go about blowing up a planet. That's the kind of conversations science fiction writers have when they get together. We don't talk about football or anything like that.”

“I'd say art is with you. All around you. I'd say when there doesn't seem to be anyone else, there is art. I'd say you can love art how you wish to be loved. And I'd say art is a lifeline to the rest of us - we are out here. You are not alone. There is nothing about you that scares us. There is nothing unlovable about you, either.”

Writing Art Seems Wish Art Is Scare Not Alone Lifelines Unlovable

Author:Lidia Yuknavitch

“Blank pages inspire me with terror.”

Writing Inspire Pages Terror Blank Blank Pages

Book:Margaret Atwood: Conversations

Source: Margaret Atwood: Conversations

“Writing is not something you can do or you can't. It's not even something that 'other people do' or 'for smart people only' or even 'for people who finished school and went to University'. Nonsense. Anyone can do it. But no-one can do it straight off the bat. Like plastering, brain surgery or assembling truck engines, you have to do a bit of training - get your hands dirty - and make some mistakes.”

People Writing Hands School Bits Can Do Mistake Brain Smart Training University Finished Dirty Nonsense Engines Bats Surgery Truck Smart People Assembling Brain Surgery Finished School

Author:Jasper Fforde

“Scribbler, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one's own.”

Writing Views

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

“Have a short story feature two situations, and then let them solve each other.”

Writing Two Stories Situation Solve Features Short Story

Author:Gene Wolfe

“To read and to write. Some writers have to be told to write. They think their job is to meet agents and have experiences and they can just be rich and famous. Their job is to write. Some really don't realize that. And you can't write unless you read.”

Thinking Writing Jobs Realizing Rich Agents

Author:Ursula K. Le Guin

“I rewrite a great deal. I'm always fiddling, always changing something. I'll write a few words - then I'll change them. I add. I subtract. I work and fiddle and keep working and fiddling, and I only stop at the deadline.”

Writing Deals Add Deadline Few Words Fiddle

Author:Ellen Goodman

“I do think that there's art that is tortured, but I prefer art that has the joy in it.”

Thinking Writing Art Joy

Author:Josh Ritter

“It has long been a tradition among novel writers that a book must end by everybody getting just what they wanted, or if the conventional happy ending was impossible, then it must be a tragedy in which one or both should die. In real life very few of us get what we want, our tragedies don't kill us, but we go on living them year after year, carrying them with us like a scar on an old wound.”

Ifs Want Should Writing Years Long Book Real Ends Wanted Dies Novel Impossible Goes On Tradition Tragedy Wounds Real Life Scar Conventional Happy Endings Old Wounds

Author:Willa Cather

“We should imitate the great classics. We would miss, and that miss would be our originality.”

Should Writing Would Be Missing Originality

Author:Raymond Radiguet

“The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst - for me, at least - is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything that I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.”

Source: Nightmares & Dreamscapes

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