Best Writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 26

Author:Philip Larkin

“The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh-Morpork some legislation was passed in a determined attempt to ?put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honest.”

Writing Honest Determined Accurate Introducing Legislation Reign Olaf Ankh

Book:The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

Source: The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

“There is no blue without yellow and without orange, and if you put in blue, then you must put in yellow, and orange too, mustn't you? Oh well, you will tell me that what I write to you are only banalities.”

Ifs Writing Wells Blue Colour Yellow Orange Oh Well Banality

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)

“Seeing that I am so busily occupied with myself just now, I want to try to paint my self-portrait in writing.”

Want Writing Trying Self Seeing Paint Portraits Self Portrait

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)

“An author arrives at a good style when his language performs what is required of it without shyness.”

Writing Language Style Shyness

Book:Enemies of Promise

Source: Enemies of Promise

“I'd like to write the way I do my paintings, that is, as fantasy takes me, as the moon dictates.”

Way Writing Fantasy Painting Moon Take Me

Author:Paul Gauguin

“Literary poetry in a painter is something special, and is neither illustration nor the translation of writing by form.”

Writing Form Poetry Special Painter Translations Something Special Illustration

Author:Paul Gauguin

“When I taught, a lot of my students weren't big readers, so they would write something and I realized that they thought it belonged in a book. Like, they didn't know what the inside of a book looked like, you know what I mean?”

Knows Writing Mean Book Bigs Students Taught Like You Reader I Realized

Author:David Sedaris

“I tend to write things seven times before I show them to my editor. I write them seven times, then I take them on tour, read them like a dozen times on tour, then go back to the room and rewrite, read and rewrite... I would never show him a first draft, because then he's really going to be sick of it by the twelfth draft.”

Writing Firsts Shows Rooms Sick Seven Editors Dozen Editing

Author:David Sedaris

“I met a young woman the other day, and she said, what advice would you have for a writer, and I said it would be to work every day... Your job is to write. The rest of it will take care of itself. But, generally, it seems ... you know how that is, you meet people and they have a talent for self-promotion. Those are the pushy people. And you know their writing's not going to be any good, because that's not their talent.”

People Knows Writing Said Self Seems Would Be Care Jobs Young Know How Advice Talent Mets Take Care Young Women Promotion Self Promotion Pushy

Author:David Sedaris

“Write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

Writing Years Next Draws Surprise Next Year Happy New Year Inspirational

Author:Neil Gaiman

“I was always aware, reading Chesterton, that there was someone writing this who rejoiced in words, who deployed them on the page as an artist deploys his paints upon his palette. Behind every Chesterton sentence there was someone painting with words, and it seemed to me that at the end of any particularly good sentence or any perfectly-put paradox, you could hear the author, somewhere behind the scenes, giggling with delight.”

Writing Ends Joy Artist Reading Behinds Scene Pages Paint Delight Sentences Paradox Behind The Scenes Palette

Book:The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction

Source: The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction

“I wrote because I had to. I couldn't stop. There wasn't anything else I could do. If no one ever bought anything, anything I ever did, I'd still be writing. It's beyond a compulsion.”

Ifs Writing Stills Compulsion

Author:Tennessee Williams

“I think no more than a week after I started writing I ran into the first block. It's hard to describe it in a way that will be understandable to anyone who is not a neurotic.”

Thinking Way Writing Firsts Hard Week Block Ran Neurotic

Book:Sweet Bird of Youth

Source: Sweet Bird of Youth

“My greatest affliction... is perhaps the major theme of my writings, the affliction of loneliness that follows me like a shadow, a very ponderous shadow too heavy to drag after me all of my days and nights.”

Writing Night Loneliness Majors Shadow Heavy Theme Drag Affliction Day And Night Follow Me

Book:Memoirs

Source: Memoirs

“Good taste cannot supply the place of genius in literature, for the best proof of taste, when there is no genius, would be, not to write at all.”

Writing Would Be Literature Genius Taste Proof Good Taste

Author:Madame de Stael

“I have had an inordinate and painful concern for the audience in my writing career.”

Writing Careers Audience Concern Painful

Author:Marsha Norman

“I am probably afraid that some spectator will not understand my photography - therefore I proceed to make it really less understandable by writing defensibly about it.”

Writing Photography Spectators

Author:Ansel Adams

“I refuse to be misled by any kind of a mirage about any alleged success of what I write. Those things are too easily exaggerated, and even when they are true, they always mean less than they seem to.”

Writing Kind Mean Seems Success Refuse Exaggerated Misled Mirages

Book:Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk & Writer

Source: Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk & Writer

“Writers are what they write, also what they fail to write.”

Writing Failing

Book:The Beginning of the Journey: The Marriage of Diana and Lionel Trilling

Source: The Beginning of the Journey: The Marriage of Diana and Lionel Trilling

“Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints.”

Writing Problem Literature Havens Gender Enormous Complaints

Author:Jim Harrison

“Life makes writing poetry necessary to prove I really was paying attention.”

Writing Attention Prove Pay Attention Writing Poetry

Author:Mark Strand

“If you told me to write a love song tonight, I'd have a lot of trouble. But if you tell me to write a love song about a girl with a red dress who goes into a bar and is on her fifth martini and is falling off her chair, that's a lot easier, and it makes me free to say anything I want.”

Ifs Want Writing Song Fall Girl Trouble Easier Red Dresses Bars Chairs Tonight Say Anything Fifth Martini Falling Off

Author:Stephen Sondheim

“People have been telling me I'm a failure and that I'm doing it all wrong for 20 years now. Never trust anybody when they tell you how your story goes. You know your story. You write your own story.”

People Knows Life Writing Years Has Beens Stories Trust Failure Comedian Trust Yourself Humorists Never Trust Write Your Own Don't Trust Anyone

Author:Kevin Smith

“To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking.”

Writing Oneself Cease Echoes Decisiveness

Author:Arnold Bennett

“I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.”

Writing Book Suffering Disease Finished Ashamed Writing A Book

Author:Baron de Montesquieu

“Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.”

Writing Persons History Advice

Book:Historical Essays and Studies: Great Event

Source: Historical Essays and Studies: Great Event

“The conscious mind is the editor, and the subconscious mind is the writer. And the joy of writing, when you're writing from your subconscious, is beautiful - it's thrilling. When you're editing, which is your conscious mind, it's like torture.”

Writing Mind Beautiful Joy Conscious Torture Editors Editing Subconscious Thrilling Subconscious Mind Conscious Mind

Author:Steve Martin

“The fools who write articles about me think that one morning I suddenly decided to write and began to produce masterpieces. There is no special trick about writing, or painting either. I wrote constantly for 15 years before I produced anything with any solidity to it.”

Thinking Writing Years Morning Special Produce Painting Fool Decided Experience Tricks Articles Masterpiece Solidity

Book:Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout

Source: Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout

“I am constantly amazed at how little painters know about painting, writers about writing, merchants about business, manufacturers about manufacturing. Most men just drift.”

Knows Men Writing Littles Knowledge Painting Painter Amazed Manufacturing Merchants

Book:Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout

Source: Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout

“For writing, getting off our buts means getting on our butts-putting it into a chair and not moving from the chair for a set period of time.”

Inspirational Writing Mean Moving Periods Chairs

Author:Peter McWilliams

“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

“All I want is a modest place in Mr X's Good Reading, Miss Y's Good Writing, and that new edition of One Thousand Best Bits of Recent Prose.”

Want Writing Reading Bits Missing Thousand Prose Modest Good Writing Good Reading

Book:Ego 5: Again More of the Autobiography of James Agate

Source: Ego 5: Again More of the Autobiography of James Agate

“Literature has nothing to do with usefulness; the most useful place in any house is the toilet.”

Writing Literature House Toilets Usefulness

Author:Theophile Gautier

“Sometimes when I am writing, I am aware of a rhythm, a dance, a fury, which is as yet empty of words.”

Writing Sometimes Empty Rhythm Fury

Author:Stephen Spender

“Not merely can people like me write things that would never have been printed before but I think an enormously dramatic change has taken place in public opinion, possibly for the wrong reasons.”

People Thinking Writing Has Beens Reason Literature Opinion Taken Like Me Dramatic Public Opinion Printed Wrong Reasons Dramatic Change

Author:Anthony Holden

“The writing itself is no big deal. The editing, and even more than that, the self-doubt, is excruciatingly impossible.”

Writing Self Bigs Deals Doubt Impossible Editing Big Deal Self-doubt

Author:Jonathan Safran Foer

“Critics have said I write without spontaneity, in cold blood. I don't. I write in hot blood.”

Writing Said Blood Cold Hot Critics Spontaneity

Author:Billy Joel

“Everyday, the mail brings the thousands of letters, and you hand over to Me personally hundreds more. Yet, I do not take the help of anyone else, even to open the envelopes. For, you write to me intimate details of your personal problems, believing that I alone will read them and having implicit confidence in Me. You write, each one only a single letter, that makes for Me a huge bundle a day; and I have to go through all of them. You may ask how I manage it? Well I do not waste a single moment.”

Writing Believe Wells May Moments Helping Problem Hands Asks Huge Waste Letters Everyday Details Manage Intimate Mail Single Mom Envelopes Bundles Implicit Personal Problems

Author:Sathya Sai Baba

“By far the most common task for which the machines are used is writing - or word processing, as it's known to the same people who call journalism 'content.”

People Writing Used Common Known Tasks Machines Journalism Processing

Author:Robert Motherwell

“The word story is intended to alert the reader to the fact that, however closely the narrative may fit the facts, the fictional process has been at work.”

Writing May Has Beens Facts Stories Process Reader Fit Narrative

Book:Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings 1969-1989

Source: Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings 1969-1989

“Writing is like giving birth to a piano sideways. Anyone who perseveres is either talented or nuts.”

Giving Writing Birth Piano Nuts Persevere Giving Birth Sideways

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“Of every four words I write, I strike out three.”

Writing Three Four Strikes Editing

Author:Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

“It's very hard to be an experimental woman writer. If I had been writing under a pseudonym, just initials, I might have a different reputation - but, then I couldn't be myself either.”

Ifs Writing Different Hard Might Reputation Initials Pseudonyms

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“As an artist you're looking for universal triggers. You want it both ways. You want it to have an immediate impact, and you want it to have deep meanings as well. I'm striving for both. But I hate it when people write things that sound like they've swallowed a f... dictionary.”

People Way Want Writing Wells Artist Hate Sound Universal I Hate Impact Critics Strive Triggers Dictionary Deep Meaning

Author:Damien Hirst

“Art goes on in your head. If you said something interesting, that might be a title for a work of art and I'd write it down.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Art Said Might Interesting Goes On Titles Works Of Art Something Interesting

Author:Damien Hirst

“While I was an addict, I didn't write anything. I didn't have the attention span or the will.”

Writing Attention Addict Drunkenness Attention Span

Author:David Crosby

“Beauty and truth may be attributes of good writing, but if the writer deliberately aims at truth, he is likely to find that what he has hit is the didactic.”

Ifs Writing May Aim Attributes Good Writing Didactic

Book:Collected Works of Northrop Frye: The educated imagination and other writings on critical theory 1933-1963

Source: Collected Works of Northrop Frye: The educated imagination and other writings on critical theory 1933-1963

Writing Quotes

Related topics

Writing Quotes