Best writing & stories Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 2

“If you don't have a sensation of apprehension when you set out to find a story and a swagger when you sit down to write it, you are in the wrong business.”

Ifs Writing Stories Sensations Apprehension Swagger

Author:A. M. Rosenthal

“A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell them to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning.”

Way Writing Said Stories Would Be Asks Fiction Statements Abstract Inadequate

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“Have a short story feature two situations, and then let them solve each other.”

Writing Two Stories Situation Solve Features Short Story

Author:Gene Wolfe

“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.”

Source: Nightmares & Dreamscapes

“I have found that a story leaves a deeper impression when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on.”

Writing Stories Found Sides Impossible Deeper Impression

Author:Leo Tolstoy

“Here's my answer to the very real existential crisis that grips me midway through everything I've ever tried to do: I think stories help us fight the nihilistic urges that constantly threaten to consume us.”

Thinking Writing Real Helping Stories Fighting Answers Crisis Urges Existential Existential Crisis Midway

Author:John Green

“Every story I write is different. Some are hard. Some aren't. 'Chronicle' was tremendously easy. I have a hard time comparing my process on different things, but I will say this: The more you write, the better you get at it. That's one of the few things that's markedly true.”

Writing Different Hard Stories Easy Process Compare Hard Times Different Things Chronicles

Author:Max Landis

“I used to write stories and poetry, but for some reason I have it in my head that if I'm going to write, I have to write a script.”

Ifs Writing Reason Stories Used Scripts

Author:Melanie Lynskey

“Writing detective stories is about writing light literature, for entertainment. It isn't primarily a question of writing propaganda or classical literature.”

Writing Stories Light Literature Entertainment Propaganda Detectives Detective Stories Classical Literature

Author:Steig Larsson

“I write nonfiction in this thriller-esque style. I have all the facts; I research it. I have thousands of pages of court documents... I try to get inside my stories.”

Writing Trying Facts Stories Style Pages Research Court Nonfiction Documents Thrillers Writing Nonfiction

Author:Ben Mezrich

“I write short stories. I write every day.”

Writing Stories Short Story

Author:Isaiah Mustafa

“I love Mikhail Bulgakov. He is very original and takes the story to unexpected places. I didn't realise political writing could be so funny.”

Writing Stories Political Originals Unexpected Realising Unexpected Places Political Writing

Author:Denise Mina

“I grew up on the crime stuff. Spillane, Chandler, Jim Thompson, and noir movies like Fuller, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang. When I first showed up in New York to write comics back in the late 1970s, I came with a bunch of crime stories but everybody just wanted men in tights.”

Men Writing Firsts Stories Wanted Stuff Crime New York Grew Late Grew Up Bunch Noir Tights Fritz Lang

Author:Frank Miller

“I come to writing from hearing great stories as a child in Louisiana, where the mark of a person was his or her ability to be a raconteur. I also come to writing as a professional actress whose body has been trained to listen and smell and inhabit characters without judgment.”

Writing Children Persons Has Beens Character Stories Body Ability Judgment Mark Hearing Smell Actresses Louisiana

Author:Rebecca Wells

“I used to be an editor and I was editing young adult series. I didn't really like the books that I was reading, so I decided that I would write a book about something I'd want to read if I was 16. It turned into a Cinderella story... I developed a proposal and the characters of 'Gossip Girl' for my job.”

Ifs Want Writing Book Character Stories Jobs Young Used Girl Reading Adults Decided Series Young Adult Used To Be Gossip Editors Editing Proposal Gossip Girl Cinderella Story

Author:Cecily von Ziegesar

“I'm not one of these 'the characters write themselves; the story just fell out of me' kind of writers. Wish it was like that.”

Writing Kind Character Stories Wish

Author:Markus Zusak

“I didn't 'decide' to write YA, per se. But every time I thought of a story, it featured characters 15, 16, 17.”

Writing Character Stories

Author:Sara Zarr

“I'm not in a race with anybody to make the biggest hit movie anymore. I am just trying to tell stories that I can stay interested in for the two years it takes me to supervise the writing and to direct them.”

Writing Trying Years I Can Two Stories Race Direct Two Years Take Me

Author:Steven Spielberg

“It has been suggested that Tiptree is female, a theory that I find absurd, for there is to me something ineluctably masculine about Tiptree’s writing. I don’t think the novels of Jane Austen could have been written by a man nor the stories of Ernest Hemingway by a woman, and in the same way I believe the author of the James Tiptree stories is male.”

Thinking Men Way Writing Believe Has Beens Stories I Believe Novel Written Theory Female Males Absurd Masculine Could Have Been Jane Austen

Author:Robert Silverberg

“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 didn’t do anything. I don’t have an explanation, I don’t know why I wanted to write. I did some short stories at that time, but very infrequently. I quit my job just to quit. I didn’t quit my job to write fiction. I just didn’t want to work anymore”

Knows Want Writing Stories Wanted Jobs Fiction Quitting Explanation Short Story I Quit

Book:Conversations with Don DeLillo

Source: Conversations with Don DeLillo

“Stop trying to write sentences and start trying to write stories.”

Writing Trying Stories Sentences Stop Trying

Author:James Patterson

“I can't quite remember the exact moment when I became obsessed with writing a play about the seemingly endless war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I knew that I wanted to somehow tell the stories of the Congolese women caught in the cross-fire.”

Writing I Can War Play Moments Stories Wanted Remember Fire Crosses Democratic Caught Endless Obsessed Republic Congo Endless War Democratic Republic

Author:Lynn Nottage

“Don't ever let anyone else write your story for you.”

Writing Stories

Book:Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It

Source: Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It

“It's hard to write about a love story with a broken heart.”

Writing Heart Hard Stories Broken Love Story

Book:Girl in a Band

Source: Girl in a Band

“The O. Henry has become lingua franca among writers for saying, 'That guy can write a story.' It's prestigious, respected, coveted, dreamed about. It's very satisfying to be included in this group of writers. Here's a koan: Could O. Henry win an O. Henry?”

Writing Stories Guy Winning Groups Satisfying That Guy Prestigious O Henry

Author:Tony D'Souza

“I love opera, I love writing for the voice, I love telling stories with music.”

Writing Stories Voice Opera Telling Stories

Author:Anthony Davis

“A poet can feel free, in my estimation, to write a poem for himself. Or a painter can paint a painting for himself. You can write a short story for yourself. But for me, comedy by its nature is communal. If other people don't get it, I'm not sure why you are doing it.”

People Ifs Feels Writing Stories Comedy Painting Poet Paint Painter Not Sure Short Story Estimation

Author:Keegan-Michael Key

“I write on sacred stories, symbols and rituals of all cultures - European, American and Chinese - but my audiences, typically, like me to focus on India.”

Writing Stories Culture Audience Focus India Sacred Like Me Symbols Chinese Ritual

Author:Devdutt Pattanaik

“I don't write about the same thing every time, everyday, different things are happening out there and if you take the time to look around, you can see that, then you can put it all together and tell the story.”

Ifs Writing Looks Different Stories Together Happenings Everyday Different Things

Author:Desmond Dekker

“The way that I sort of direct the writers is, let's do the best story we can. Let's not worry about production issues. 'How much will that cost? How are we going to shoot that?' Let's not set up those constraints on the writing. I don't think it helps the project to work like that.”

Thinking Way Writing Helping Stories Worry Issues Cost Projects Direct Productions Do The Best Constraints

Author:Jose Padilha

“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

“Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

Writing Wells Stories Rewards Radio Enormous Showers Bearable

Book:A Man Without a Country

Source: A Man Without a Country

“You find when you're writing a detective story that you're actually not trying to solve anything. You're trying to stop the reader from solving the puzzle.”

Writing Trying Stories Reader Solve Puzzles Detectives Detective Stories

Author:Christopher Bollen

“Budget grows out of the story. If you're writing a story with people caught in an elevator for most of the film, you're pretty sure it won't be a $200 million movie.”

People Ifs Writing Stories Film Grows Millions Caught Budgets Elevators You Re Pretty

Author:J. Michael Straczynski

“Any topical subject, if it's Hollywood, will be a couple of years later because you've got to write it, produce it and distribute it, so automatically you're never going to be right on the cutting edge of stories.”

Ifs Writing Years Stories Cutting Subjects Produce Couple Hollywood Edges Cutting Edge

Author:George Clooney

“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

“You write a book and you finish the book. That's your job done, right? You win the Booker and you have a whole new job. You have to be the thing, right? So instead of writing the story, you somehow are the story. And that I found that sort of terrible.”

Writing Book Done Whole Stories Jobs Found Winning Terrible New Job

Author:Anne Enright

“The ideas for stories that thronged my brain would not let me rest till I had got rid of them by writing them.”

Writing Ideas Stories Brain Let Me Obsession

Author:W. Somerset Maugham

“I don't want anyone reading my writing to think about style. I just want them to be in the story.”

Thinking Want Writing Book Stories Reading Style Books And Reading

Author:Willa Cather

“I tend to write about my anxieties - it's what I'm afraid will happen. And I write a story working it out.”

Writing Stories Happens Anxiety Working It

Author:Rainbow Rowell

“When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write.”

Writing Firsts Book Stories Light Work Morning Cold Warm Every Morning Daily Work

Author:Ernest Hemingway

“People have been telling me I'm a failure and that I'm doing it all wrong for 20 years now. Never trust anybody when they tell you how your story goes. You know your story. You write your own story.”

People Knows Life Writing Years Has Beens Stories Trust Failure Comedian Trust Yourself Humorists Never Trust Write Your Own Don't Trust Anyone

Author:Kevin Smith

“The word story is intended to alert the reader to the fact that, however closely the narrative may fit the facts, the fictional process has been at work.”

Writing May Has Beens Facts Stories Process Reader Fit Narrative

Book:Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings 1969-1989

Source: Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings 1969-1989

“I'm not really an autobiographical writer, though I use lots of stuff from my life to make my stories seem real. But when I actually write about myself, I get very confused.”

Writing Real Stories Use Seems Stuff Confused Revelations

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”

“The first author I remember being obsessed by, actually realizing 'I like the way he writes and I like the way he tells stories,' was C.S. Lewis and the 'Narnia' books.”

Way Writing Firsts Book Stories Remember Realizing Obsessed Narnia

Author:Neil Gaiman

“Write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.”

Needs Writing Matter Stories Written Honestly Not Sure

Author:Neil Gaiman

“Eragon started as me but ended up evolving into his very own character, .. Even as he has gone through his coming- of- age story, the process of writing and publishing these novels has been my own coming- of- age story. There are parallels between my own experience and Eragon's, but fortunately, I don't have people charging at me with swords.”

People Writing Has Beens Character Stories Age Process My Own Novel Gone Evolve Coming Of Age Publishing Parallels Charging Eragon

Author:Christopher Paolini

“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.”

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

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