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Writing Quotes

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Writing Quotes

“I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes. So for me, writing from a male point of view would be a great challenge, that I would look forward to taking on.”

People Needs Should Writing Believe Looks Play Character Would Be Able I Believe Social Challenges Lines Views Class Crosses Males Gender Point Of View Good Writers Social Class Chameleon

Author:Marisha Pessl

“I'm often asked how I write books, but I don't think my approach is suitable for everyone. If I walked into a creative writing class, all I could say to them was 'I tend to make it up as I go along.' I'm not sure that's brilliant advice.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Book Class Creative Advice Approach Brilliant Not Sure Creative Writing Suitable

Author:Ian Rankin

“I had various jobs, I taught a SAT class, I was a bartender, I had a day job at an office and was making short films. I got grants from NYSCA and NEA for an idea, which later became 'Huckabees,' about a guy in a Chinese restaurant who had microphones on every table and heard every personal conversation and would write perversely personal fortunes.”

Writing Ideas Jobs Film Guy Class Heard Taught Conversation Office Tables Fortune Various Chinese Sat Restaurants Grants Microphones Day Jobs Bartender Short Films

Author:David O. Russell

“And as journalists we look for differences - differences between countries, cultures, classes, and communities. We're very sensitized to difference, but it's much harder to write about similarities across countries, cultures, classes, and communities.”

Writing Looks Country Culture Community Differences Class Harder Journalist Similarity

Author:Amy Waldman

“I'm afraid of coaching, of writer's classes, of writer's magazines, of books on how to write. They give me centipede trouble - you know the yarn about the centipede who was asked how he managed all his feet? He tried to answer, stopped to think about it, and was never able to walk another step.”

Thinking Knows Giving Writing Book Able Language Answers Walks Steps Class Trouble Feet Give Me Magazines Coaching Yarn Centipedes

Author:Robert A. Heinlein

“I was a 'learn by doing' writer - I never took any formal writing classes. So it took a long time to figure things out and find my voice.”

Writing Long Voice Class Figures Long Time Formal

Author:Sara Zarr

“Earning money is not the sole objective of life or education. A community of any quality should have a whole range of skills and interests. They should paint, write, perform, visit art galleries and enjoy world-class concerts. Only then will they form a vibrant, rounded, interesting community.”

“I was a journalism major, and I would take creative writing classes as part of that, but I would also look for opportunities to write stories for some of my other classes. So for my course in Scandinavian history, I asked if I could write historical fiction instead of term papers. Sometimes they’d say yes.”

“I took a writing class in college, liked it, and my first year out of school I couldn't get a job, so I wrote a play.”

Writing Years Firsts Play School Jobs Class College

Author:Zoe Kazan

“When I was about 13 or 14, I had an English teacher who made a deal with me that I could get out of doing all of the year's regular work if I would write a short story a week and on Friday read it to the class.”

Ifs Writing Years Made Stories Deals Class Teacher Week Short Story Friday English Teacher

Author:Victor Salva

“Somewhere in university, I realized that I hadn't been to classes in months, and I'd get tired to the point of narcolepsy doing anything other than some form of performing, directing, writing, or acting.”

Writing Form Acting Class Months Tired University I Realized Performing Narcolepsy

Author:William Shatner

“If you don't take enough math classes or science classes or writing intensive classes, you're not going to be prepared to compete in college or the workplace -- no matter what your diploma says.”

Ifs Writing Matter Enough Class College No Matter What Prepared Math Be Prepared Workplace Diploma Science Class Math Class

Author:Rod Blagojevich

“The only excuse for a novelist, aside from the entertainment and vicarious living his books give the people who read them, is as a sort of second-class historian of the age he lives in. The "reality" he missed by writing about imaginary people, he gains by being able to build a reality more nearly out of his own factual experience than a plain historian or biographer can.”

People Giving Writing Book Reality Age Able Class Gains Entertainment Excuse Novelists Historian Imaginary Factual Biographers Vicarious

Book:John Dos Passos: the major nonfictional prose

Source: John Dos Passos: the major nonfictional prose

“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