Best Writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 7

“I will get a loan and pay the money the court asks for. But I will not lay down my writing and I still say this was an important book to write.”

Writing Stills Important Book Asks Pay Court Lays Loan

Author:Asne Seierstad

“If I lose, then I have to accept that my way of writing books is not the way society says it's okay to write.”

Ifs Way Writing Book Loses Accepting Okay My Way Writing A Book

Author:Asne Seierstad

“There is nothing I would change - to change it I would have had to write a totally different book.”

Writing Book Different Different Books

Author:Asne Seierstad

“People would say, Can we develop a sitcom around you? and I would say, Not interested. I'm very happy doing standup and writing and taking my kids to school.”

People Writing Kids School Not Interested Very Happy Sitcom Aggravation

Author:Jeff Foxworthy

“People would write me hate letters. How dare I try to represent Hispanics when I was so white? I tried to make them see it was racism.”

People Writing Trying Hate White Racism Letters Dare

Author:Cristina Saralegui

“I just think that people are complicated, both men and women. It happens that I write more about women.”

People Thinking Men Writing Happens Men And Women Complicated

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“I just write the books that I think I would want to read.”

Thinking Want Writing Book

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“There are so many people who are so much better qualified to write about politics than I am.”

People Writing Qualified

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.”

Writing Firsts Two Book Jobs Teaching Odd Odd Jobs

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“It's one of the strangest attributes of this profession that when we writers get exhausted writing one thing, we relax by writing another.”

Writing One Thing Profession Relax Attributes Exhausted

Author:Dan Simmons

“No one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published.”

Writing Inspired Terrified

Author:Dan Simmons

“I don't use my writing career as a vehicle to get me acting work or to write roles for myself.”

Writing Use Acting Careers Roles Vehicle

Author:Danny Strong

“I took a lot of writing courses.”

Writing Courses

Author:Danny Strong

“There came this point where I sat down with all my notebooks and I had to start to write, when I thought: this whole notion of writing for the person who understands nothing, the average reader ... He has to die! I can't have him in my head. And so the person I started writing for was the homicide detective.”

Writing Persons I Can Whole Dies Reader Notion Average Sat Detectives Notebook Homicide

Author:David Simon

“It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs.”

Writing Song Natural Protest Inclination Protest Songs

Author:David Sylvian

“I do write by hand. I just think - I don't know, it's a physical thing for me. It's a bodily thing. It literally has to earn its way through my hand.”

Thinking Knows Way Writing Hands Physical Things

Author:Elizabeth Strout

“I don't think there was a particular book that made me want to write. They all did. I always wanted to write.”

Thinking Want Writing Made Book Wanted Particular

Author:Elizabeth Strout

“I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a new world, who's willing to do their part. But then I have to do my part and give them a sound and a voice that they believe in enough to keep going.”

World Giving Writing Believe Enough Lost Sound Voice Willing Reader Ideals Keep Going New World

Author:Elizabeth Strout

“In a way, I'm very interested in writing about Maine, because I think Maine represents its own kind of history. It's the oldest state, and it's the whitest state.”

Thinking Way Writing Kind States Maine

Author:Elizabeth Strout

“Without a doubt my mother was an inspiration for my writing. This is true in many ways, but mostly because she is a wonderful storyteller, without even knowing it.”

Way Writing Inspiration Mother Knowing Doubt Wonderful Storyteller

Author:Elizabeth Strout

“I'm just writing songs about how I feel or about how people I know feel.”

People Knows Feels Writing Song Writing Songs

Author:Elliott Smith

“Anytime I write something that's trying to be too smart, it doesn't work.”

Writing Trying Smart

Author:Emeli Sande

“I always knew I wanted to be a musician, and I always knew I wanted to write, 'cause the people I was listening to all wrote. I never thought it was an option to sing anyone else's songs.”

People Writing Wanted Song Causes Listening Musician

Author:Emeli Sande

“I started writing seriously about 1960, at the fairly advanced age of 30.”

Writing Age 1960s

Author:Fred Saberhagen

“And I have finally realized that, you know, it's not a given that my lifespan will accommodate my writing aspirations. It could be that it would take me 12 more books at six years each to get it - which means I would have to live to be 126. Which I fully intend to do, of course.”

Knows Writing Years Mean Book Courses Given Six Aspiration Take Me Accommodate

Author:George Saunders

“Early on, a story's meaning and rationale seem pretty obvious, but then, as I write it, I realize that I know the meaning/rationale too well, which means that the reader will also know it - and so things have to be ramped up.”

Knows Writing Wells Mean Stories Seems Realizing Reader Obvious Rationale

Book:Tenth of December

Source: Tenth of December

“I wasted a lot of years working on my writing and very grandly saying, 'And now... My Novel!,' which would soon be reduced to a short story, then to a paragraph.”

Writing Years Stories Novel Short Story Paragraph

Author:George Saunders

“The best thing that ever happened to me is that nothing happened in writing. I ended up working for engineering companies, and that's where I found my material, in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace. Being broke and tired, you don't come home your best self.”

“There's a really nice moment in the life of a piece of writing where the writer starts to get a feeling of it outgrowing him - or he starts to see it having a life of its own that doesn't have anything to do with his ego or his desire to 'be a good writer'.”

Writing Moments Feelings Desire Pieces Nice Ego Really Nice Good Writers Outgrowing

Author:George Saunders

“I've always liked new writing.”

Writing

Author:Imelda Staunton

“Just go outside and look at something and write it down and you'll find it is a very nice piece of writing.”

Writing Looks Pieces Nice Down And Very Nice

Author:John Sandford

“Most people who are trying to write kind of sit in their basements and pull it out of their imaginations.”

People Writing Trying Kind Imagination Basements

Author:John Sandford

“Well, I am becoming doddering and old but I have - I'm writing two books a year now. It's like 220,000 words or something like finished, and, honest to God, I can't do that. I really do need the help of, you know, other people working with me.”

People Knows Needs Writing Years Wells I Can Two Book Helping Honest Becoming Finished

Author:John Sandford

“I do not just write, I write what I am. If there is a secret, perhaps that is it.”

Ifs Writing Secret

Author:Jose Saramago

“There's so many great songs already written, it's kind of really wonderful you don't have to write your own.”

Writing Kind Song Wonderful Written Write Your Own

Author:Katey Sagal

“In our whole life melody the music is broken off here and there by rests, and we foolishly think we have come to the end of time. God sends a time of forced leisure, a time of sickness and disappointed plans, and makes a sudden pause in the hymns of our lives, and we lament that our voice must be silent and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of our Creator. Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time and not be dismayed at the rests. If we look up, God will beat the time for us.”

“Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?”

Writing Use Available Nouns

Author:William Safire

“Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself.”

Writing Book Whole Ambition Pages Sentences Cursed

Author:Joseph Joubert

“The meaning ... of a writer will be found not just in what he intends to say, or what he does literally say, but in the effect of his writing on living beings.”

Writing Doe Found Effects

Book:The Politics of History

Source: The Politics of History

“Everybody is writing, writing, writing - worst of all, writing poetry. It'd be better if the whole tribe of the scribblers - every damned one of us - were sent off somewhere with tool chests to do some honest work.”

Ifs Writing Whole Worst Honest Tools Chests Tribes Writing Poetry Honest Work

Author:Walt Whitman

“A good rule for writers: do not explain overmuch.”

Writing

Author:W. Somerset Maugham

“Writers have to get used to launching something beautiful and watching it crash and burn. They also have to learn when to let go control, when the work takes off on its own and flies, farther than they ever planned or imagined, to places they didn't know they knew.”

Knows Writing Beautiful Used Letting Go Crash Something Beautiful Launching

Author:Ursula K. Le Guin

“Perhaps no poet is a conscious plagiarist, but there seems to be warrant for suspecting that there is no poet who is not at one time or another an unconscious one.”

Writing Seems Poet Conscious Unconscious One Time Warrants

Book:Following the Equator:

Source: Following the Equator:

“How could poetry and literature have arisen from something as plebian as the cuneiform equivalent of grocery-store bar codes? I prefer the version in which Prometheus brought writing to man from the gods. But then I remind myself that...we should not be too fastidious about where great ideas come from. Ultimately, they all come from a wrinkled organ that at its healthiest has the color and consistency of toothpaste, and in the end only withers and dies.”

Men Should Writing Ideas Ends Dies Literature Color Stores Bars Versions Code Organs Consistency Groceries Great Idea Grocery Stores Toothpaste Prometheus Fastidious Cuneiform

Author:Alice Weaver Flaherty

“I think the tendency to over-explain and over describe is one of the most common failings in fantasy. It's an unfortunate piece of Tolkien's legacy. Don't get me wrong, Tolkien was a great worldbuilder, but he got a little caught up describing his world at times, at the expense of the overall story.”

Thinking World Writing Littles Stories Common Fantasy Pieces Failing Caught Tendencies Legacy Expenses Unfortunate Caught Up Describing

Author:Patrick Rothfuss

“Don't talk about it; write.”

Writing

Author:Ray Bradbury

“It's no good looking to writers for definitions of what constitutes proper writing, because you will drive yourself crazy, and you won't find anything that you can build into a coherent whole.”

Writing Whole Crazy Definitions Looking Good

Author:Nick Hornby

“If you get bored with nothing to do, you are not a writer ... We are in the business of reproducing reality from nothing. We are the biggest liars in the world, seeking truth.”

Ifs World Writing Reality Seeking Bored Liars Seeking Truth Reproducing

Author:Guillermo del Toro

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer showed the whole world, and an entire sprawling industry, that writing monsters and demons and end-of-the-world is not hack-work, it can challenge the best. Joss Whedon raised the bar for every writer - not just genre or niche writers, but every single one of us.”

World Writing Ends Whole Challenges Industry Raised Monsters Bars Whole World Vampire Genre Demon Working It End Of The World Niche Hacks Slayer Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Author:Russell T Davies

“In [writing] fiction, every sentence is its own reward.”

Writing Fiction Rewards Sentences Writing Fiction

Author:Amy Tan

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