Quotessence
Home / Topics / Writing Quotes

Writing Quotes

Browse 36579 quotes about Writing.

Related topics

IfsThinkingPeopleBookKnowsWaySongWantStoriesTryingWorldFeelsNovelKindI CanFirstsYearsWellsCharacterIdeasNeedsMenShouldSometimesReadingWrittenDifferentLongLittlesGivingMeanMindArtFictionWantedReaderPlayPersonsHardImportantTwoStillsDoneRealLiteratureStuffEnoughEndsBelieveProcessSaidMayHas BeensMy OwnLooksAbleDoeFeelingsSeemsPagesMadeMightUseHappensChildrenLanguageMatterReasonPaperFilmWould BeShowsCreativeWholeHeartMomentsHelpingLettersJobsHumansRememberFormInterestingArtistTogetherUsedKidsNextPoetSongwritingPiecesThreeFunDifficultSchoolSelfHandsVoiceHoursLinesmore

Writing Quotes

“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.”

WritingIdeasJobsFilmGuyClassHeardTaughtConversationOfficeTablesFortuneVariousChineseSatRestaurantsGrantsMicrophonesDay JobsBartenderShort Films
Author:David O. Russell
Create image

“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.”

MenShouldWritingIdeasEndsDiesLiteratureColorStoresBarsVersionsCodeOrgansConsistencyGroceriesGreat IdeaGrocery StoresToothpastePrometheusFastidiousCuneiform
Author:Alice Weaver Flaherty
Create image

“Part of writing a novel is being willing to leap into the blackness. You have very little idea, really, of what's going to happen. You have a broad sense, maybe, but it's this rash leap. It's like spelunking. You kind of create the right path for yourself. But, boy, are there so many points at which you think, absolutely, I'm going down the wrong hole here. And I can't get back to the right hole. I'm not going to be able to get this section back to the right hole - so I'm just going to have to cut it.”

ThinkingWritingKindLittlesI CanIdeasHappensAbleBoysNovelPathCuttingWillingHolesLeapGet BackBroadsSectionsBlacknessRight Path
Author:Chang-Rae Lee
Create image

“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.”

WantWritingTryingKindIdeasDifferentEndsFeelingsMightSongFitSceneStructureBunchDifferent KindsDifferent Ideas
Author:Ryan Adams
Create image

“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.”

WritingIdeasEndsCharacterFormOrderFightingBlackWaterImaginationMemoriesFireBattleShapesPaperLaborLogicSightArmyMetaphorSpreadRageMarchFlagsMagnificentInkLegendaryPowderWagonsArtilleryCavalry
Author:Honore de Balzac
Create image

“The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst - for me, at least - is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything that I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.”

WayWritingMayLongSaidBookIdeasMomentsStoriesFeelingsBeliefVoiceDarkMy OwnSilenceWrittenWorstListeningOptimismSteadySpeculationLong WayFear Of FailureSpookyAnaloguePositive Feelings
Book:Nightmares & Dreamscapes
Create image

“I am committed to writing appropriate books for the middle grades. This means no bad language, no gratuitous or explicit violence, and no sexual content beyond what you might find in a PG-rated movie – expressions of who likes whom, holding hands, and perhaps the occasional kiss. The idea that we should treat sexual orientation itself as an adults-only topic, however, is absurd. Non-heterosexual children exist. To pretend they do not, to fail to recognize that they have needs for support and validation like any child, would be bad teaching, bad writing, and bad citizenship.”

NeedsShouldWritingMeanChildrenBookIdeasHandsMightWould BeLanguageSupportViolenceFailingTeachingMiddleExpressionKissingAdultsTreatsCommittedLikesAbsurdGradesAppropriateCitizenshipTopicsOccasionalOrientationValidationExplicitHolding HandsBad WritingBad Language
Author:Rick Riordan
Create image

“There are so many different kinds of writing and so many ways to work that the only rule is this: do what works. Almost everything has been tried and found to succeed for somebody. The methods, even the ideas of successful writers contradict each other in a most heartening way, and the only element I find common to all successful writers is persistence-an overwhelming determination to succeed.”

WayWritingKindHas BeensIdeasDifferentFoundCommonSuccessfulSucceedElementsDeterminationMethodPersistenceOverwhelmingDifferent KindsDetermination To Succeed
Book:For Writers Only: Inspiring Thoughts on the Exquisite Pain and Heady Joy of the Writing Life from Its Great Practitioners
Create image

“Reality is very, very contradictory, and so I try to write just perfecting what I see, what I read, what I feel, in a feel-thinking way. Not only giving ideas, or receiving ideas, or trying to explain something, but mainly feel-thinking, a feel-thinking language able to tie the heart and the mind, which have been divorced.”

ThinkingWayGivingFeelsWritingTryingMindHeartHas BeensIdeasRealityAbleLanguageTiesReceivingDivorcedContradictory
Author:Eduardo Galeano
Create image

“My reason for writing stories is to give myself the satisfaction of visualising more clearly and detailedly and stably the vague, elusive, fragmentary impressions of wonder, beauty, and adventurous expectancy which are conveyed to me by certain sights (scenic, architectural, atmospheric, etc.), ideas, occurrences, and images encountered in art and literature.”

GivingWritingArtIdeasReasonStoriesCertainLiteratureWonderSightSatisfactionScaryImpressionEtcVagueAdventurousElusiveExpectancyWriting StoriesScenic
Book:H.P. Lovecraft: The Ultimate Collection (160 Works Including Early Writings, Fiction, Collaborations, Poetry, Essays & Bonus Audiobook Links)
Create image

“To draw does not simply mean to reproduce contours; the drawing does not simply consist in the idea: the drawing is even the expression, the interior form, the plan, the model. Look what remains after that! The drawing is three fourths and a half of what constitutes painting. If I had to put a sign over my door to the atelier, I would write: School of drawing, and I'm certain that I would create painters.”

IfsWritingLooksMeanDoeIdeasSchoolFormCertainThreeHalfPlansDoorsPaintingExpressionModelsDrawsRemainsDrawingPainterInteriors
Author:Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Create image

“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.”

IfsGivingWritingYearsIdeasEndsBigsRememberBoysFiveFourReturnPaperSixGive MeSevenCoffeeCupsRememberedShakesSilverChocolatePensLunchSugarThickBobDesksSeven YearsOrderlyCoffee CupWaitressNapkins
Author:David
Create image

“If you hear a good idea, capture it; write it down. Don't trust your memory. Then on a cold wintry evening, go back through your journal, the ideas that changed your life, the ideas that saved your marriage, the ideas that bailed you out of bankruptcy, the ideas that helped you become successful, the ideas that made you millions. What a good review-going back over the collection of ideas that you gathered over the years. So be a collector of good ideas for your business, for your relationships, for your future.”

IfsWritingYearsMadeIdeasMotivationalMemoriesMillionsSuccessfulChangedTrustColdGoodSavedEveningCollectionsReviewsCaptureOur FutureGood IdeasOur RelationshipJournalYour FutureOur MemoriesRecipe For SuccessCollectorsDon't TrustBankruptcyBecoming Successful
Author:Jim Rohn
Create image

“There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line. It's tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don't think conceptually while I work on a first draft -- I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.”

ThinkingKnowsWantShouldWritingTryingFirstsLittlesIdeasStoriesLinesOne ThingTheoryReaderToughOpeningInvitesTrickyJarsMoonbeams
Author:Stephen King
Create image