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Writing Quotes

“The point is the 'me' that you see before you is not the 'me' in my private little space, shape-shifting into the writing role, nor is it the 'me' that works with the actors. Here, at the end of the film doing interviews, I feel like I'm in disguise.”

Feels Writing Littles Ends Film Actors Space Roles Shapes Interviews Disguise Shifting

Author:Julia Leigh

“All stories interest me, and some haunt me until I end up writing them.”

Writing Ends Stories Interest Social Issues

Author:Isabel Allende

“The biographies of great artists make it abundantly clear that the creative urge is often so imperious that it battens on their humanity and yokes everything to the service of the work, even at the cost of health and ordinary human happiness. The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature that achieves its end either with tyrannical might or with the subtle cunning of nature herself, quite regardless of the personal fate of the man who is its vehicle.”

“The centerpiece of 'Law and Order' is the crime, and it starts with the writing. There's a beginning, a middle and an end. It allows the audience to watch any given episode and can drop right in and not feel lost. I think the stark, raw structure has a lot to do with its longevity.”

Thinking Feels Writing Ends Law Order Lost Given Watches Audience Middle Crime Structure Episodes Longevity Starks Law And Order Centerpieces

Author:Danny Pino

“I think it's harder than ever to be an artist. I think that you end up, especially as a middle-aged person, you pay such big consequences for saying, 'I'm just going to devote my life to making art,' or 'I'm going to devote my life to writing novels.' You end up with no resources.”

Thinking Writing Persons Art Ends Bigs Artist Pay Novel Middle Consequence Resources Harder Middle Aged

Author:Dana Spiotta

“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.”

“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

“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

“To disguise nothing, to conceal nothing, to write about those things that are closest to our pain, our happiness; to write about our sexual clumsiness, the agonies of Tantalus, the depth of our discouragement-what we glimpse in our dreams-our despair. To write about the foolish agonies of anxiety, the refreshment of our strength when these are ended; to write about our painful search for self, jeopardized by a stranger in the post office, a half-seen face in a train window, to write about the continents and populations of our dreams, about love and death, good and evil, the end of the world.”

“You can't know what a book is about until the very end. This is true of a book we're reading or writing.”

Knows Writing Book Ends Reading Reading Or Writing

Author:Lynda Barry

“If you are going to make a book end badly, it must end badly from the beginning.”

Ifs Writing Book Ends

Book:The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Letters and Essays (Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, containing Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, Catriona and A Child's Garden of Verses

Source: The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Letters and Essays (Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, containing Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, Catriona and A Child's Garden of Verses

“I keep one simple rule that I only move in one direction - I write the book straight through from beginning to end. By following time's arrow I keep myself sane.”

Writing Book Ends Moving Simple Following Sane Arrows One Direction

Author:Jonathan Lethem

“Now I don't really write for adults or kids - I don't write for kids, I write about them. I think you need to do that, otherwise you end up preaching down.”

Thinking Needs Writing Ends Kids Adults Preaching

Author:Jerry Spinelli

“At the end of 1795 and beginning of 1796, I was ordered to write to the Church ministers.”

Writing Ends Church Ministers

Book:Copies of letters sent to the clergy of Exeter. 1813. A communication sent in a letter to the Reverend Mr. P. in 1797. [1814] A dispute between the woman and the powers of darkness. 2d ed. 1813. The answer of the Lord to the powers of darkness. 2d ed. 1813. A caution and instruction to the sealed. 1807. A warning to the world. [1804] The strange effects of faith. 2d ed. 1801

Source: Copies of letters sent to the clergy of Exeter. 1813. A communication sent in a letter to the Reverend Mr. P. in 1797. [1814] A dispute between the woman and the powers of darkness. 2d ed. 1813. The answer of the Lord to the powers of darkness. 2d ed. 1813. A caution and instruction to the sealed. 1807. A warning to the world. [1804] The strange effects of faith. 2d ed. 1801

“In the end, you have to write like you're not afraid of the critics.”

Writing Ends Like You Critics Not Afraid

Author:Maggie Stiefvater

“There are times when I want to be plainspoken about my feelings in a song. But there are other times when it's really good to try and get my head around different kinds of song structures, or maybe I might get turned on by trying to write a song that would fit in this one scene in a movie. And by the end of all this, you just end up with a bunch of different ideas. And songs are really just ideas.”

Want Writing Trying Kind Ideas Different Ends Feelings Might Song Fit Scene Structure Bunch Different Kinds Different Ideas

Author:Ryan Adams

“Everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.”

“Never believe anything a writer tells you about himself. A man comes to believe in the end the lies he tells himself about himself.”

Men Writing Believe Ends Lying

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“It's not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, "Read," but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, "Don't read, don't think, just write," and the result could be a mountain of drivel. If you're going to be a writer you'll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think, "There must be something else people do," you won't be able to quit.”

People Ifs Thinking Want Writing Different Ends Might Able Young Turns Results Too Much One Day Mountain Quitting Advise Paralyzed Young Writers Wrong Turn Drivel

Author:Alice Munro

“A cardinal rule of writing is never interrupt yourself to explain something. If you must bring up an obscure topic, drop informative hints about it as you go along so that you don't end up with the entire explanation all in one place. This keeps you from skidding to a stop and sounding teacherish. Otherwise it's better to omit the obscure topic altogether, or as mothers might put it: if you can't say it interestingly, don't say it at all.”

Ifs Writing Ends Might Mother Explanation Obscure Topics Hints Cardinals Informative Cardinal Rules

Author:Florence King

“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

“Part of my function as a writer is to dream awake. And that usually happens. If I sit down to write in the morning, in the beginning of that writing session and the ending of that session, I'm aware that I'm writing. I'm aware of my surroundings. It's like shallow sleep on both ends, when you go to bed and when you wake up. But in the middle, the world is gone and I'm able to see better.”

Ifs World Writing Ends Dream Happens Able Sleep Morning Gone Middle Bed Function Wake Up Awake Shallow Surroundings Session

Author:Stephen King

“Every year for New Years I write down all of my goals and dreams and put them in my Bible. At the end of the year I go and pull the paper out and check this off and check that off.”

Writing Years Ends Dream Goal Paper Checks New Year Dreams And Goals

Author:NeNe Leakes

“As far as I'm concerned, I'm a writer who's writing books, and therefore, I don't want to die. You'd miss the end of the book, wouldn't you? You can't die with an unfinished book.”

Want Writing Book Ends Dies Missing Concerned Writing A Book Unfinished Wanting To Die

Author:Terry Pratchett

“There is an argument for believing that the entire process of writing a piece of fiction is simply a thinly-controlled and highly-internalised nervous breakdown designed, with a bit of luck, to produce something worthwhile at the end.”

Writing Believe Ends Bits Process Fiction Pieces Produce Argument Luck Nervous Controlled Worthwhile Breakdown Nervous Breakdown

Book:Writing: A User Manual: A practical guide to planning, starting and finishing a novel

Source: Writing: A User Manual: A practical guide to planning, starting and finishing a novel

“I write because I want to end my loneliness. Books make people less alone. That, before and after everything else, is what books do. They show us that conversations are possible across distances.”

People Want Writing Book Ends Shows Loneliness Conversation Distance Before And After

Author:Jonathan Safran Foer

“One metric catches people. We prefer businesses that drown in cash. An example of a different business is construction equipment. You work hard all year and there is your profit sitting in the yard. We avoid businesses like that. We prefer those that can write us a check at the end of the year.”

People Writing Years Different Ends Hard Example Hard Work Sitting Profit Checks Construction Cash Yards Equipment Metrics

Author:Charlie Munger

“Well, in fact everybody - everybody - in the entire nation has enough stuff in their life to write about that's interesting that they could write their autobiography. And in the end that's why I find people interesting.”

People Writing Wells Ends Enough Facts Nations Stuff Interesting Autobiography

Author:Jane Smiley

“I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.”

Knows Writing Book Ideas Ends No Idea

Author:Ted Bell

“You go from these high hopes when you're writing to just a desperate want of not making a complete fool of yourself by the end of it.”

Want Writing Ends Fool Desperate

Author:Rian Johnson

“Back in the days when American billboard advertising was in flower [said Hemingway], there were two slogans that I always rated above all others: the old Cremo Cigar ad that proclaimed, Spit Is a Horrid Word-but Worse on the end of Your Cigar, and Drink Schlitz in Brown Bottles and Avoid that Skunk Taste. You don't get creative writing like that any more.”

Writing Said Two Ends Creative Flower Drink Taste Advertising Brown Bottles Ads Creative Writing Slogans Spit Cigar Billboards

Book:The Good Life According to Hemingway

Source: The Good Life According to Hemingway

“Often times, I'm surprised by what I'm writing or what I'm playing, and then that inspires me to keep going with it, so it ends up being a very adventurous process.”

Writing Ends Process Inspire Keep Going Adventurous

Author:Marketa Irglova

“The songs, if I write alone in a room, end up being a little more quiet, a little more subdued. If I play with other musicians or percussive instruments, it might end up being a little more upbeat.”

Ifs Writing Littles Ends Play Might Song Rooms Quiet Musician Instruments Upbeat

Author:Marketa Irglova

“I think they thought it was very arrogant of me to write the end of my seven books series when I didn't have a publisher and no-one had heard of me”

Thinking Writing Book Ends Heard Series Seven Arrogance Arrogant Publishers

Author:J. K. Rowling

“I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.”

Writing Ends Poetry Powerful Curiosity Discovering Inspiring Writing

Author:Robert Frost

“I got on the phone with the president of my label and I said, "Obviously, I write songs in a lot of styles and play a lot of different kinds of music. We're getting toward the end of our business collaboration. If you could envision a record that you wanted to hear from me, what kind of record would it be?" It wasn't like asking him to fill an order, it was really just a conversation. For all the things I'd ever asked him, this was one thing I'd never asked, and I don't know why. So I was curious. And the thing that he was most interested in hearing was a solo record.”

“Writing books isn't a drastic departure from writing for the stage. I've always written in the long format, five, eight, 10-minute pieces rather than one-liners, so since writing books, the process hasn't changed much. A piece in my live routine can end up as part of one of my HBO specials, and it can also end up in one of the books.”

Writing Long Book Ends Process Five Pieces Written Minutes Stage Changed Eight Routine Writing A Book Departure Format One Liner Hbo Drastic

Author:George Carlin

“The end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction; and he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender than the physician to the patient when he prescribes harsh remedies.”

Writing Ends Enemy Patient Vices Honestly Satire Amendments Remedy Physicians Harsh Corrections Offenders

Book:The Poetical Works of John Dryden

Source: The Poetical Works of John Dryden

“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

“We all have time to write. We have time to write the minute we are willing to write badly, to chase a dead end, to scribble a few words, to write for the hell of it instead of for the perfect and polished result.”

Writing Ends Time Perfect Results Hell Minutes Willing Polished Few Words Dead Ends Scribbles

Book:The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life

Source: The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life

“I have a very beautiful room in my house... It's glass on three sides, and you'd think that's the perfect place to write. Somehow in that nice room I feel too exposed, and... I'm too distracted by things going on, so I end up writing in a not-very-nice office bedroom.”

Thinking Feels Writing Ends Beautiful Three House Sides Perfect Rooms Nice Office Glasses Exposed Bedroom Distracted Very Nice Very Beautiful Three Sides

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“I like things to be orderly. For seven years I ate at Bob's Big Boy. I would go at 2:30, after the lunch rush. I ate a chocolate shake and four, five, six, seven cups of coffee-with lots of sugar. And there's lots of sugar in that chocolate shake. It's a thick shake. In a silver goblet. I would get a rush from all this sugar, and I would get so many ideas! I would write them on these napkins. It was like I had a desk with paper. All I had to do was remember to bring my pen, but a waitress would give me one if I remembered to return it at the end of my stay. I got a lot of ideas at Bob's.”

“My goal from the very beginning was just to write good songs that don't require any production to be felt or understood. I wanted to be able to sit in a room with a guitar and play the song from beginning to end and have it be as impactful as if you heard the studio version with all the bells and whistles.”

Ifs Writing Ends Play Able Wanted Song Felt Goal Rooms Heard Understood Guitar Productions Studios Versions Bells

Author:Madonna Ciccone

“For Borges, the core of reality lay in books; reading books, writing books, talking about books. In a visceral way, he was conscious of continuing a dialogue begun thousands of years before and which he believed would never end.”

Way Writing Years Book Ends Reality Reading Talking Conscious Lays Core Dialogue Reading Books Continuing Writing A Book Book Reading Book Writing Visceral Borges

Book:With Borges

Source: With Borges

“Most of my stuff is just a series of false leads. I'll approach a story as a subject and then make a whole bunch of different runs at the lead. They're all good writing but they don't connect. So I end up having to string leads together.”

Writing Different Ends Whole Stories Running Together Stuff Subjects Approach Series Bunch Strings Good Writing

Book:Ancient Gonzo Wisdom

Source: Ancient Gonzo Wisdom

“Everything you do is so personal. In the end, it doesn't matter so much if you write about your own life or not. It's going to be as much artifice when it comes out as a piece of music. Everything is in character in a way. But that's a great thing.”

Ifs Way Writing Ends Matter Character Pieces Great Things Artifice

Author:Jenny Hval

“If I ever get some free time I end up thinking about what to make next. I don't pick up a guitar and start playing the songs I already know; I immediately try to write a riff.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Writing Trying Ends Song Next Picks Guitar Free Time

Author:Chaz Bundick

“Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity.”

Writing Trying Ends Song Particular Guitar Spontaneous Sequence Chords Horns Spontaneity Improvisation Playing Guitar

Author:Van Morrison

“Early in his life Mr. [Ezra] Pound met with strong, continued, and unintelligent opposition. If people keep opposing you when you are right, you think them fools; and after a time, right or wrong, you think them fools simply because they oppose you. Similarly, you write true things or good things, and end by thinking things true or good simply because you write them”

People Ifs Thinking Writing Ends Strong Fool Mets Good Things Opposition Pounds Opposing Unintelligent True Things

Author:Randall Jarrell

“Songwriting is a mysterious art. When I sit down to write a song, the end result should be mysterious and have this dark quality.”

Should Writing Art Ends Song Dark Results Quality Mysterious Songwriting End Results

Author:Martin Gore