Best writing & self Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Every decade of my life I attempted to write a novel. But I had nothing to say. I was far too self-absorbed, and now I realize I was writing for others, so that they'd applaud me, see my genius, tell me how wonderful I am, or be jealous of my success.”

Writing Self Realizing Novel Wonderful Genius Decades Jealous Self Absorbed Being Jealous

Author:Louise Penny

“I don't have many friends. It's not because I'm a misanthrope. It's because I'm reserved. I'm self-contained. I get all my adventures in my head when I'm writing my books.”

Writing Book Self Adventure Reserved Many Friends Self Contained Misanthrope

Author:Ian Rankin

“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.”

“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.”

“Writers who get written about become self-conscious. They develop a regrettable habit of looking at themselves through the eyes of other people. They are no longer alone, they have an investment in critical praise, and they think they must protect it. This leads to a diffusion of effort. The writer watches himself as he works. He grows more subtle and he pays for it by loss of organic dash.”

Source: Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler

“Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them, it's because they contain a larger truth that your readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you'll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Stills Self Bigs Remember Memories Wind Reader Findings Our Family Theme Vivid Incidents Our Memories Saga Self Contained

Book:Writing about Your Life: A Journey Into the Past

Source: Writing about Your Life: A Journey Into the Past

“Would-be novelists need to bring equal parts arrogance and ignorance to the task before them. The arrogance is almost self-explanatory. Walk into any bookstore or library, calculate how many lifetimes the average person would need to read all the fiction contained therein. To think that one has anything to contribute, to any genre or tradition, takes genuine hubris.”

Thinking Needs Writing Persons Self Would Be Walks Fiction Ignorance Equal Tradition Tasks Lifetime Library Average Genuine Genre Novelists Arrogance Bookstores Average Person Hubris

Author:Laura Lippman

“Do not beat up on yourself. Do not criticize your writing as lousy, inadequate, stupid, or any of the evil epithets that you are used to heaping on yourself. Such self-bashing is never useful. If you indulge in it, your writing doesn't stand a chance. So when your mind turns on you, turn it back, stamp it down, shut it up, and keep writing.”

Ifs Writing Mind Self Used Turns Evil Chance Stupid Beats Criticize Stamps Indulge Inadequate Indulge In Epithet

Author:Gail Carson Levine

“All writing is an act of self-exploration. Even a grocery list says something about you; how much more does a novel say?”

Writing Doe Self Novel Lists Exploration Groceries Grocery Lists

Author:Steven Saylor

“Being a rock musician is already like ego-tripping hardcore. You're self-consumed, and you're always thinking. It's really easy to say, "I'm going to write a song about this situation, and when I'm done, everyone will care." To everybody else, that's ego-tripping.”

Thinking Writing Self Done Care Song Easy Situation Rocks Ego Musician Consumed Rock Music Hardcore Always Thinking Tripping Rock Musicians

Author:Ryan Adams

“...But I don't think I'm the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don't care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution....And I don't want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I'm tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful.”

“There are writers who do start doing the same thing again and again and almost inevitably fall into self-parody.”

Writing Self Fall Again And Again Parody

Author:Tobias Wolff

“Writing is self employment, so you can make your own schedule.”

Writing Self Employment Schedules

Author:Lois Lowry

“You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty. I don't want to live any other way.”

Way Want Writing Self States Order Situation Poverty Constant

Author:Tom Waits

“Our founders did not write that 'We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal.'”

Writing Persons Self Equal Founders Evident

Author:Edward Snowden

“Some writing is a really nice solitary process, in a way, because you can be a little self-conscious around other people. If it's just you, and you're at your favorite piano, or whatever instrument, and you feel comfortable, then somehow, I always feel like it's opening a door and letting whatever is to pass through pass.”

People Ifs Way Feels Writing Littles Self Process Nice Doors Comfortable Conscious Instruments Opening Piano Solitary Self Conscious Really Nice Your Favorite

Author:Marketa Irglova

“I had self-doubt about whether my story was interesting to people. I didn't want to write something that was anecdotal. It was important to me that people would get something out of my book. I want people to read it and say, "Now I don't feel so alone," or "I'm going to remember that next time I'm being an asshole."”

People Want Feels Writing Important Book Self Stories Remember Next Interesting Doubt Next Time Self-doubt

Author:Lizz Winstead

“Writing is an outward expression of instinctive insight that must be summoned from the vastly deep of our mysterious selves. Therefore, it cannot be taught; indeed, it cannot even be summoned; it can only be permitted.”

Writing Self Taught Expression Insight Mysterious

Author:William Hughes Mearns

“Constant reading will pull you into a place - a mind-set, if you like the phrase - where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness.”

Ifs Writing Mind Self Reading Consciousness Constant Phrases Self Consciousness Mind Set

Book:On Writing

Source: On Writing

“For a while, I felt a little self-impelled to write Lou Reed Kind of songs. I should have understood that a Lou Reed song was anything I wanted to write about.”

Should Writing Kind Littles Self Wanted Song Felt Understood Should Have Reeds

Author:Lou Reed

“Seeing that I am so busily occupied with myself just now, I want to try to paint my self-portrait in writing.”

Want Writing Trying Self Seeing Paint Portraits Self Portrait

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)

“I met a young woman the other day, and she said, what advice would you have for a writer, and I said it would be to work every day... Your job is to write. The rest of it will take care of itself. But, generally, it seems ... you know how that is, you meet people and they have a talent for self-promotion. Those are the pushy people. And you know their writing's not going to be any good, because that's not their talent.”

People Knows Writing Said Self Seems Would Be Care Jobs Young Know How Advice Talent Mets Take Care Young Women Promotion Self Promotion Pushy

Author:David Sedaris

“The writing itself is no big deal. The editing, and even more than that, the self-doubt, is excruciatingly impossible.”

Writing Self Bigs Deals Doubt Impossible Editing Big Deal Self-doubt

Author:Jonathan Safran Foer

“I've always had a great love of music since childhood. It changes every day.. every time you write, it's a new experience. It's a self expression.”

Writing Self Childhood Expression Great Love Self Expression Music Love New Experiences

Author:Edgar Winter

“Disgrace is a subtle, multi-layered story, as much concerned with politics as it is with the itch of male flesh. Coetzee's prose is chaste and lyrical without being self- conscious: it is a relief to encounter writing as quietly stylish as this. I was not totally convinced by Lurie's musical abilities, with regard to his proposed opera, but that is my sole complaint.”

“If I could write a letter to my teenage self I'd probably say something like: "You ain't gonna believe what will become of you."”

Ifs Writing Believe Self Like You Letters If I Could Teenage

Author:Antony Sher

“I write on a computer, but I've run the complete gambit. When I was very young, I wrote with a ballpoint pen in school notebooks. Then I got pretentious and started writing with a dip pen on parchment (I wrote at least a novel-length poem that way). Moved on to a fountain pen. Then a typewriter, then an electric self-correct. Then someone gave me a word processor and I was amazed at being able to fit ten pages on one of those floppy discs.”

“There isn't a single day I don't do some writing -- if you don't, you won't have a book. When you're self-employed it is very easy to burn away your time instead -- answering e-mails, surfing the Internet, or hanging out with friends. You really must have the discipline to sit down and write every day. Most of what I am writing is living in the back of my head or in my subconscious. I find if I write every day, my subconscious will do the job for me.”

Ifs Writing Book Self Jobs Easy Internet Discipline Down And Hanging Out Mail Subconscious Employed Surfing Surfing The Internet Hanging Out With Friends

Author:Charles de Lint

“Crossing out is an art that is, perhaps, even more difficult than writing. It requires the sharpest eye to decide what is superfluous and must be removed. And it requires ruthlessness toward yourself -- the greatest ruthlessness and self-sacrifice. You must know how to sacrifice parts in the name of the whole.”

Knows Inspirational Writing Art Self Whole Eye Literature Names Difficult Know How Sacrifice Crossings Self Sacrifice Superfluous Ruthlessness

Author:Yevgeny Zamyatin

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