Best Writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 38

“Prague is not, strictly speaking, travel writing but it is, among other things, an excellent example of what travel writing is becoming, if indeed it hasn't already done so. . . . People are no longer so easily satisfied by the mere travel impressions of some outsider much like themselves. Instead they gravitate towards writers who actually have lived not simply in, but inside, a location for an extended period, as one lives inside one's clothes.”

People Ifs Writing Done Example Becoming Periods Clothes Mere Impression Satisfied Excellent Outsiders Location Travel Writing Prague

Author:George Fetherling

“So research is a terribly imperfect science, and you learn an awful lot more after you've published a book, because people keep writing to you and saying, 'Oh, gosh, I was related to such and such a character and I have a letter in my possession.'”

People Writing Book Character Research Letters Possession Awful Related Imperfect

Author:Simon Winchester

“I do as much bookish research as I can but when I sit down to write, often I think, 'Wait, I was there.' That is one of the great advantages of having wandered around the world and lived in so many places and met such fascinating people.”

People Thinking World Writing I Can Waiting Mets Research Advantage Around The World Fascinating

Author:Simon Winchester

“There is freedom in being a writer and writing. It is fulfilling your function. I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.”

Thinking Want Writing Mean Earth Used Knowing Function Who You Are Supposed To Be Fulfilling Writers And Writing Knowing Who You Are

Author:Natalie

“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

“When you give up a bit of work don't (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the re-writing of things begun and abandoned years earlier.”

Thinking Giving Writing Years May Bits Giving Up Abandoned Best Work Drawers

Author:C. S. Lewis

“I've been writing about Vermont independence for nearly ten years... and, more often than not, it was for an audience of one.”

Writing Years Audience Ten Independence Vermont Audience Of One

Author:Thomas Naylor

“Writing is no respecter of blueprints.”

Writing Blueprints

Book:On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“We just write down a bunch of words, and pray to god they make sense. And if we don't, it doesn't matter, we're artists.”

Ifs Writing Matter Artist Praying Bunch Make Sense Praying To God Blink 182

Author:Tom DeLonge

“When I write in the studio, I tend to gravitate toward the ability to play really loud, aggressive, post-punk stuff, with big, heavy guitars and a big rock drum sound.”

Writing Play Bigs Stuff Sound Ability Rocks Guitar Studios Heavy Posts Loud Aggressive Punk

Author:Tom DeLonge

“You've got to concentrate on the business of entertaining and writing songs. Always think different from the next person. Don't ever do a song as you heard somebody else do it.”

Thinking Writing Persons Different Song Next Practice Heard Entertaining Writing Songs Think Different

Author:Otis Redding

“Every morning like a scholar at his first class I prepare a blank mind for the day to write upon.”

Writing Mind Firsts Class Morning Scholar Every Morning Blank First Class Blank Mind

Author:Bruce Lee

“To choose to write is to reject silence.”

Writing Silence Rejects

Author:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Virtue is the habit of acting according to wisdom. GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ, "Felicity", Leibniz: Political Writings Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered. JOHN LOCKE, Some Thoughts Concerning Education However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.”

“I'd rather write about laughing than crying, For laughter makes men human, and courageous.”

Men Writing Humans Laughing Cry Laughter Courageous

Author:Francois Rabelais

“In general, inquiry ceases when we adopt a theory. After that, we overlook whatever makes against it, and see and think, and talk and write, only in its favor. Indeed, when we have a snug, comfortable theory, to which we are much attached, they appear to us as a very mean set of facts that will not square with it.”

Thinking Writing Mean Facts Theory Comfortable Favors Cease Squares Inquiry Very Mean

Book:Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

“If it is a distinction to have written a good book, it is also a disgrace to have written a bad one.”

Ifs Writing Book Written Distinction Good Book Disgrace

Author:Christian Nestell Bovee

“In the nineteenth century one had to give all sorts of guarantees and lead an exemplary life in order to cleanse oneself in the eyes of the bourgeois of the sin of writing, for literature is, in essence, heresy. The situation has not changed except that it is now the Communists, that is, the qualified representatives of the proletariat, who as a matter of principle regard the writer as suspect.”

“I write as clearly as I am able to. I sometimes tackle ideas and notions that are relatively complex, and it is very difficult to be sure that I am conveying them in the best way. Anyone who goes beyond cliche phrases and cliche ideas will have this trouble.”

Way Writing Ideas Sometimes Able Difficult Trouble Complexes Notion Best Way Phrases Cliche Conveying

Author:R. A. Lafferty

“The rational intellect doesn't have a great deal to do with love, and it doesn't have a great deal to do with art. I am often, in my writing, great leaps ahead of where I am in my thinking, and my thinking has to work its way slowly up to what the "superconscious" has already shown me in a story or poem.”

Thinking Way Writing Art Stories Deals Intellect Rational Leap

Book:A Circle of Quiet

Source: A Circle of Quiet

“When a child who has been conceived in love is born to a man and a woman, the joy of that birth sings throughout the universe. The joy of writing or painting is much the same, and the insemination comes not from the artist himself but from his relationship with those he loves, with the whole world. All real art is, in its true sense, religious; it is a religious impulse; there is not such thing as a non-religious subject.”

Men World Writing Children Has Beens Art Real Whole Joy Artist Universe Born Religious Love Is Subjects Painting Birth Art Is Whole World Impulse Non Religious

Author:Madeleine L'Engle

“No man, even though he be Shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands.”

Men Writing Has Beens Land Thread Woven Spun

Book:The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays

Source: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays

“For those that love the world serve it in action, Grow rich, popular, and full of influence; And should they paint or write still is it action, The struggle of the fly in marmalade.”

World Should Writing Stills Action Grows Struggle Rich Influence Paint Marmalade

Book:Selected Poems And Four Plays

Source: Selected Poems And Four Plays

“When Walt Whitman writes in seeming defiance of tradition, he needs tradition for his protection, for the butcher and the baker and the candlestick-maker grow merry over him when they meet his work by chance.”

Needs Writing Grows Chance Tradition Protection Makers Merry Defiance Seeming Walt Butchers Bakers

Book:The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays

Source: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays

“For I must write to The Times tonight, and save the world from sin.”

World Writing Sin Tonight Save The World

Author:A. P. Herbert

“If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.”

Ifs Should Writing Book Play Writing A Book

Author:Georg C. Lichtenberg

“Everyone who has ever written will have discovered that writing always awakens something which, though it lay within us, we failed clearly to recognize before.”

Writing Written Lays

Author:Georg C. Lichtenberg

“A man always writes absolutely well whenever he writes in his own manner, but the wigmaker who tries to write like Gellert ... writes badly.”

Men Writing Trying Wells

Author:Georg C. Lichtenberg

“What concerns me alone I only think, what concerns my friends I tell them, what can be of interest to only a limited public I write, and what the world ought to know is printed.”

Thinking Knows World Writing Interest Ought My Friends Concern Printed Me Alone

Author:Georg C. Lichtenberg

“I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.”

Writing Literature Fields Research Accused Anthropology

Author:Clifford Geertz

“There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face. ... It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth ... into a liar - that I call an achievement.”

People Writing Believe Art Book Done Whole Faces Achievement Liars Sensible Sane Great Art Solemn Brevity

Author:Georg C. Lichtenberg

“He that would earn the Poet's sacred name, Must write for future as for present ages.”

Writing Age Poetry Names Poet Sacred

Book:Poems

Source: Poems

“When we seek a textbook case for the proper operation of science, the correction of certain error offers far more promise than the establishment of probable truth. Confirmed hunches, of course, are more upbeat than discredited hypotheses. Since the worst traditions of "popular" writing falsely equate instruction with sweetness and light, our promotional literature abounds with insipid tales in the heroic mode, although tough stories of disappointment and loss give deeper insight into a methodology that the celebrated philosopher Karl Popper once labeled as "conjecture and refutation.”

Source: Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History

“Good writers hate bad writing but hating bad writing doesn’t make you good. Writing badly does.”

Writing Doe Hate Good Writing Good Writers Bad Writing

Author:Dan Harmon

“A lot of my books have been that way. My World War II thriller about Sarin gas [Black Cross] was published two months before the Sarin attack in the Japanese subway. There are very weird coincidences out there. And I do have one surefire plot I have not and probably never will write, because of my fear someone will carry it out.”

World Way Writing Has Beens Two Book War Black Months Crosses War Of The Worlds Gas Plot World War Ii World War I Coincidence Thrillers Subway Two Months

Author:Greg Iles

“Now that I'm experiencing motherhood, I'm ready to write the next chapter of my family story. Of course a few jaded folks in the press corps will claim I ran out of money or just want to kiss John Corbett again. One of these things is true.”

Want Writing Stories Courses Next Ready Kissing My Family Claims Presses Folks Motherhood Ran Chapters Jaded Next Chapter

Author:Nia Vardalos

“Writing a story requires you to understand how the world works, how characters think, how their emotions drive them to do surprising things, and so on. In other words, as a writer, you have to be more than a stylist. You need to learn to become a master of storytelling.”

Thinking World Needs Writing Character Stories Emotion Masters Storytelling Surprising Stylist Surprising Things

Author:David Farland

“[The poet] must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time and place.”

Writing Generations Mankind Poet Superiors Manners Future Generation Legislators Interpreter

Author:Samuel Johnson

“A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn.”

Writing Left Style Poet Touched Historian Naturalist

Author:Samuel Johnson

“When the new country came out ten to 15 years ago, people my age were almost too old. But it never stopped me. I never stopped writing. I never stopped recording.”

People Writing Years Country Age Ten Years Ago

Author:Dolly Parton

“I learned early on that I could get a lot of attention by singing and writing little songs, so it was like throwing nuts to a monkey... I just couldn't get enough.”

Writing Littles Enough Song Attention Learning Singing Throwing Nuts Monkeys

Author:Dolly Parton

“Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.”

Way Writing Art Stories Young Artist Literature Drawing Magazines Young Artists Drawing Pictures

Book:O. Henry's stories: Short Stories and Classic Literature

Source: O. Henry's stories: Short Stories and Classic Literature

“I am through generalizing about ideas apart from men who generate them. I am through writing books about the dead, or writing books about the living to the unborn (tucked away as Literature) or writing books about the unborn to the living (whiffed away as prophecy). I put up my life on advertising the living to the living, on making men of genius known to the people and interpreted to their time, that the time in which I live, may live face to face with its men of vision and that they may live face to face with one another.”

People Men Writing May Book Ideas Faces Literature Known Vision Genius Advertising Prophecy Face To Face Writing A Book Living On Unborn

Book:The House of Twenty Seven Gardens

Source: The House of Twenty Seven Gardens

“Not that I don't think irreverent humor and someone being filthy is funny, I just do what I do. Any comedian would admit throwing an f-bomb in there would help get a reaction. ... I'm not on a Puritanical pursuit, but when I would curse in a joke, I believe I'm not done writing it.”

Thinking Writing Believe Done Helping I Believe Jokes Pursuit Reactions Comedian Curse Bombs Throwing Filthy Irreverent

Author:Jim Gaffigan

“Nine-tenths of the value of a sense of humor in writing is not in the things it makes one write but in the things it keeps one from writing. It is especially valuable in this respect in serious writing, and no one without a sense of humor should ever write seriously. For without knowing what is funny, one is constantly in danger of being funny without knowing it.”

Should Writing Values Knowing Danger Serious Valuable Nine Sense Of Humor Being Funny

Author:Robert Benchley

“I get lots of ideas when the lights go out at night and it gets very quiet. Sometimes they come when I first lie down to sleep; other times I wake up with an idea racing through my mind. But regardless of when an idea comes, I have made it a habit to get out of bed and write the idea down before it disappears into my dreams. You should do the same.”

Should Writing Mind Firsts Made Ideas Sometimes Dream Light Lying Night Sleep Habit Bed Quiet Wake Up Disappear Made It Racing

Book:Embrace the Struggle: Living Life on Life's Terms

Source: Embrace the Struggle: Living Life on Life's Terms

“You grow a whole lot more as a writer by getting old stories out of the house and letting new ones come in and live with you until they grow up and are ready to go. Don't let the old ones stay there and grow fat and cranky and eat all the food out of the refrigerator. You have dozens of generations of stories inside you, but the only way to make room for the new ones is to write the old ones and mail them off.”

Way Writing Whole Stories House Grows Rooms Growing Up Generations Ready Fats Dozen Mail Getting Old Refrigerators Cranky

Author:Orson Scott Card

“For there below ground sits the Dark God, strong to call men to judgment; he sees all, and writes it in his memory.”

Men Writing Strong Memories Dark Judgment Call Me

Book:The Libation Bearers: And The Eumenides: The Oresteia, Parts II and III.

Source: The Libation Bearers: And The Eumenides: The Oresteia, Parts II and III.

“Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.”

Source: The Impact of Science On Society

“I myself hate that old Hemingwayesque paradigm of the writer as prizefighter and I have tried hard to create an alternate one for myself. When Anne Sexton admonished me, "We are all writing God's poem," I took it to mean there should be no competition between writers because we are all involved in a common project, a common prayer. But to Gore's and Norman's generation, particularly those male writers who served in the second world war, the prizefighter paradigm remains.”

World Should Writing Mean War Hard Hate Prayer Common Generations Involved Projects Remains Competition Males War Of The Worlds Paradigm Gore Second World War Self Hate

Author:Erica Jong

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