“When I hit a block, regardless of what I am writing, what the subject matter is, or what's going on in the plot, I go back and I read Pablo Neruda's poetry. I don't actually speak Spanish, so I read it translation. But I always go back to Neruda. I don't know why, but it calms me, calms my brain.” KnowsWritingMatterSpeakBrainSubjectsCalmBlockPlotTranslationsSubject Matter Author:Tea Obreht
“To present a scientific subject in an attractive and stimulating manner is an artistic task, similar to that of a novelist or even a dramatic writer. The same holds for writing textbooks.” WritingBookScienceSubjectsTasksArtisticNovelistsAttractiveDramaticTextbooks Author:Max Born
“It appeared that after first contemplating a book on some subject, and after giving serious preliminary attention to it, I needed a period of subconscious incubation which could not be hurried and was if anything impeded by deliberate thinking.... Having, by a time of very intense concentration, planted the problem in my subconsciousness, it would germinate underground until, suddenly, the solution emerged with a blinding clarity, so that it only remained to write down what happened as if in a revelation.” IfsThinkingGivingWritingFirstsBookProblemAttentionHappenedSubjectsSeriousNeededPeriodsSolutionsIntenseClarityRevelationsConcentrationContemplatingSubconsciousDeliberateIncubation Author:Bertrand Russell
“I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.” WritingYearsFirstsCharacterStoriesWould BeImaginationFictionNovelSubjectsSkillsResearchUselessArticlesReportersMy ImaginationProfile Author:Amy Waldman
“Everything is autobiography, even if one writes something that is totally objective. The fact that it's a subject that seizes you makes it autobiographical.” IfsWritingFactsSubjectsObjectivesAutobiography Author:Lisel Mueller
“Real writers - serious writers with serious subjects, who earn their living at it - all seem to write in small rooms with that knotty-pine 1974 look on the top-floor rear of their houses. Rooms with views.” WritingLooksRealSeemsHouseRoomsViewsSubjectsSeriousSmall RoomsRoom With A ViewSerious Subjects Author:Peter York
“I think if you're writing from the heart, very often, the subject matter will adjust as you age... but you try to write the best song you can possibly write. For us, we have the same basic elements that make up the America sound.” IfsThinkingWritingTryingHeartMatterAgeAmericaSongSoundSubjectsElementsSubject MatterWriting From The Heart Author:Gerry Beckley
“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.” IfsWritingYearsStoriesCuttingSubjectsProduceCoupleHollywoodEdgesCutting Edge Author:George Clooney
“I like writing. It keeps my mind off grim subjects. It's therapeutic in the same way a patient in an institution is given fingerpaints.” WayWritingMindGivenSubjectsInstitutionsPatientGrimTherapeutic Author:Woody Allen
“anyone who writes about "Darwin's theory of evolutionin the singular, without segregating the theories of gradual evolution, common descent, speciation, and the mechanism of natural selection, will be quite unable to discuss the subject competently.” WritingNaturalCommonSocietySubjectsTheoryEvolutionMechanismSelectionNatural SelectionDescentSpeciation Author:Ernst Mayr
“When you write something new about science, other scientists may not like it but they pay attention because it is subject to proof. When you write something new about art, it is subject only to the reader's discomfort, and will probably be rejected.” WritingMayArtPayAttentionSubjectsReaderScientistProofPay AttentionSomething NewRejectedDiscomfort Author:Walter Darby Bannard
“The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him.” WritingStillsSubjectsListeningDiscipline Book:The house of life: Rachel Carson at work Source: The house of life: Rachel Carson at work
“I don't want to paint myself as some kind of saint - that would be laughable - but I do think I've been able over the years to write humanely about subjects who are controversial and even contemptible. I've profiled pedophiles, stalkers, serial rapists, prison gang members and corrupt politicians.” ThinkingWantWritingYearsKindWould BeAbleSubjectsPoliticianMembersPrisonPaintSaintGangControversialSerialsLaughableGang Members Author:Robert Draper
“I was definitely looking for a reason to impose rules in the story during the writing process... a set of reasons that you could graph for why it's not chaos and anarchy - for why it has to be order, and why you need architects and an architectural brain to create the world of the dream for the subject to enter.” WorldNeedsWritingReasonStoriesDreamOrderProcessBrainSubjectsChaosAnarchyArchitectWriting ProcessGraphs Author:Jonathan Nolan
“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.” WritingDifferentEndsWholeStoriesRunningTogetherStuffSubjectsApproachSeriesBunchStringsGood Writing Book:Ancient Gonzo Wisdom Source: Ancient Gonzo Wisdom
“I have begun writing what I have said I'd never write, a memoir ("I am not my own subject," I used to say with icy superiority).” WritingSaidUsedMy OwnSubjectsMemoirSuperiorityIcy Book:The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 Source: The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000
“One of the most important things as a writing instructor is to provide a lot of different entry points to subjects. To not impose your own personal experience as the One True Way.” WayWritingImportantDifferentSubjectsImportant ThingsEntryPersonal ExperiencesInstructors Author:Jeff VanderMeer
“When a child who has been conceived in love is born to a man and a woman, the joy of that birth sings throughout the universe. The joy of writing or painting is much the same, and the insemination comes not from the artist himself but from his relationship with those he loves, with the whole world. All real art is, in its true sense, religious; it is a religious impulse; there is not such thing as a non-religious subject.” MenWorldWritingChildrenHas BeensArtRealWholeJoyArtistUniverseBornReligiousLove IsSubjectsPaintingBirthArt IsWhole WorldImpulseNon Religious Author:Madeleine L'Engle
“The discourse on the Text should itself be nothing other than text, research, textual activity, since the Text is that social space which leaves no language safe, outside, nor any subject of the enunciation in position as judge, master, analyst, confessor, decoder. The theory of the Text can coincide only with a practice of writing.” ShouldWritingLanguageSocialSpacePracticeSubjectsPositionJudgingMastersTheoryActivitySafeResearchDiscourseAnalysts Author:Roland Barthes
“Underneath all his writing there is the settled determination to use certain words, to take certain attitudes, to produce a certain atmosphere; what he is seeing or thinking or feeling has hardly any influence on the way he writes. The reader can reply, ironically, "That's what it means to have a style"; but few people have so much of one, or one so obdurate that you can say of it, "It is a style that no subject can change.” PeopleThinkingWayWritingMeanUseFeelingsCertainAttitudeSeeingInfluenceSubjectsStyleProduceReaderDeterminationAtmosphere Author:Randall Jarrell
“Do you have to do murder? Do we have to do murder? Sure we have to do murder. There are only two subjects--a woman's chastity, and murder. Nobody's interested in chastity any more. Murder's all we got to write stories about.” WritingTwoStoriesSubjectsMurderChastity Author:Leslie Ford
“I don't write about sex because it's not really my subject. I love it when other people write about it, but it's not my subject, and I don't want anyone I've had sex with to write about it. Plus, you're in front of an audience, and they picture wherever you're writing about. I'm 52; no one in the audience wants to picture that.” PeopleWantWritingSexAudienceSubjectsFrontsPlus Author:David Sedaris