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

“When I was young, I kept a diary for about 10 years and I had to write in it every day. Even on days when nothing seemed to happen, I made myself think of something to put in it.”

Thinking Writing Years Made Happens Young Diaries

Author:Jonathan Stroud

“No I don't really write thinking about specific actors because it can get in the way a little bit.”

Thinking Way Writing Littles Actors Bits Little Bit

Author:Lorene Scafaria

“I think if someone is writing continuously for 10 years and has not changed their mind about something - there's something wrong with them. They're not really thinking.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Years Mind Changed

Author:Andrew Sullivan

“I just think that people are complicated, both men and women. It happens that I write more about women.”

People Thinking Men Writing Happens Men And Women Complicated

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“I just write the books that I think I would want to read.”

Thinking Want Writing Book

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“I do write by hand. I just think - I don't know, it's a physical thing for me. It's a bodily thing. It literally has to earn its way through my hand.”

Thinking Knows Way Writing Hands Physical Things

Author:Elizabeth Strout

“I don't think there was a particular book that made me want to write. They all did. I always wanted to write.”

Thinking Want Writing Made Book Wanted Particular

Author:Elizabeth Strout

“In a way, I'm very interested in writing about Maine, because I think Maine represents its own kind of history. It's the oldest state, and it's the whitest state.”

Thinking Way Writing Kind States Maine

Author:Elizabeth Strout

“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.”

“I think the tendency to over-explain and over describe is one of the most common failings in fantasy. It's an unfortunate piece of Tolkien's legacy. Don't get me wrong, Tolkien was a great worldbuilder, but he got a little caught up describing his world at times, at the expense of the overall story.”

Thinking World Writing Littles Stories Common Fantasy Pieces Failing Caught Tendencies Legacy Expenses Unfortunate Caught Up Describing

Author:Patrick Rothfuss

“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.”

“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.”

Thinking Writing Kind Littles I Can Ideas Happens Able Boys Novel Path Cutting Willing Holes Leap Get Back Broads Sections Blackness Right Path

Author:Chang-Rae Lee

“We fret about words, we writers. Words mean. Words point. They are arrows. Arrows stuck in the rough hide of reality. And the more portentous, more general the word, the more they can also resemble rooms or tunnels. They can expand, or cave in. They can come to be filled with a bad smell. They will often remind us of other rooms, where we'd rather dwell or where we think we are already living. They can be spaces we lose the art or the wisdom of inhabiting. And eventually those volumes of mental intention we no longer know how to inhabit will be abandoned, boarded up, closed down.”

Thinking Knows Writing Mean Art Reality Loses Space Rooms Know How Filled Intention Smell Stuck Rough Abandoned Volume Caves Arrows Tunnels Mean Words

Author:Susan Sontag

“And I do think that great fiction, even when it's comedic, has an urgency or an inevitability to it, a sense that the writer absolutely had to write this particular story in this way.”

Thinking Way Writing Stories Fiction Particular Urgency Inevitability Comedic

Author:Karen Russell

“Try to think of writing as a gift - more complexly put: it is the curse and the cure.”

Thinking Writing Trying Cures Curse

Author:Julianna Baggott

“I don't really think of time off as writing blocks. I think that's a western notion of demonizing inactivity. When your imagination decides it needs to take a nap. maybe that's what it needs to do.”

Thinking Needs Writing Imagination Western Notion Block Naps Time Off Inactivity

Author:Elliott Smith

“It's misleading to think of writers as special creatures, word sorcerers who possess some sort of magical knowledge hidden from everyone else. Writers are ordinary people who like to write. They feel the urge to write, and they scratch that itch every chance they get.”

People Thinking Feels Writing Chance Special Creatures Ordinary Urges Ordinary People Scratches Mislead

Book:How Writers Work: Finding a Process That Works for You

Source: How Writers Work: Finding a Process That Works for You

“I go straight from thinking about my narrator to being him.”

Thinking Writing Narrators

Book:The Outsiders

Source: The Outsiders

“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

“It can take years. With the first draft, I just write everything. With the second draft, it becomes so depressing for me, because I realize that I was fooled into thinking I'd written the story. I hadn't-I had just typed for a long time. So then I have to carve out a story from the 25 or so pages. It's in there somewhere-but I have to find it. I'll then write a third, fourth, and fifth draft, and so on.”

Thinking Writing Years Firsts Long Stories Realizing Written Pages Long Time Thirds Fourth Depressing Fifth Fooled

Author:David Sedaris

“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

“You don't realize what a strain it is on the nerves to write or think-of-writing all day long, and to sleep full of nervous dreams, and to wake up not knowing who one is: this all stems from anxiety about finishing the book, about time 'growing short', etc., and the perpetual strain of invention.”

Source: Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac, 1947-1954

“In one deep sense, novels are concealed autobiography. I don't mean that you are telling facts about yourself, but you are trying to find out what you really think or who you are.”

Thinking Writing Trying Mean Facts Novel Who You Are About Yourself Autobiography Concealed One Deep

Author:Robert Penn Warren

“I think a writer is not an ideal husband... Writers tend to get off into their own heads and not notice the people that they're living with, or they get irritable with the people that they're living with when the people insist on being noticed.”

People Thinking Writing Husband Ideals Ideal Husband

Author:Roy Blount, Jr.

“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

“I don't think I could ever give up music. It's what makes me tick. If there was no music, there would be no writing.”

Ifs Thinking Giving Writing Would Be Giving Up Tick

Author:Maggie Stiefvater

“I don't want security guards. I don't think security guards are particularly good for your writing.”

Thinking Want Writing Security Security Guards

Author:Mark E. Smith

“Honestly, as hard a profession as acting is, I think music is even harder. Acting, you're like a leech, because someone else does the hard part for you. They write it for you, then the director tells you what to do. You really just need to know how to pay attention, follow instructions.”

Thinking Knows Needs Writing Doe Hard Pay Acting Attention Know How Directors Music Is Harder Profession Honestly Pay Attention Instruction Leeches

Author:Michael Shannon

“It's not the case of turning in a bunch of songs and recording the next month. I think you're looking for songs all year long and you're writing all year long.”

Thinking Writing Years Long Song Next Cases Months Bunch

Author:Keith Urban

“I started playing guitar and writing songs when I was 15. I think what mainly sparked my interest was just the fact that I grew up listening to Cheryl King, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor, and was just always inspired by that sort of organic art, and organic songs and just very natural songwriting that came out of some of those artists.”

Thinking Writing Art Facts Artist Song Interest Natural Listening Grew Kings Grew Up Inspired Guitar Songwriting Writing Songs Playing Guitar

Author:Kate Voegele

“Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write.”

Thinking Writing Wells Backgrounds

Author:Jack Vance

“I was thinking about what I wanted to write next, after my first novel, and had decided that I wanted to write a story with a lot of strong female characters in it.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Character Stories Wanted Next Strong Novel Female Decided Female Characters Strong Female Characters Strong Female

Author:Joan D. Vinge

“I wasn't sitting around years ago thinking I really want to write a novel.”

Thinking Want Writing Years Novel Sitting Years Ago Sitting Around

Author:Amy Waldman

“I don't think of myself as an illustrator. I think of myself as a cartoonist. I write the story with pictures - I don't illustrate the story with the pictures.”

Thinking Writing Stories Cartoonist Illustrators

Author:Chris Ware

“I do think that the abiding mystery of my origins has definitely had a profound effect upon my writing. There is that thing in the back of my mind where I think I don't really know who I am. And it may make it a little easier to shift around in my narrative voice.”

Thinking Knows Writing Mind May Littles Voice Mystery Effects Easier Profound Who I Am Narrative Abiding Of My Mind Narrative Voice

Author:Gillian Welch

“I think it's a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it's literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it's romance, or a beach book - in short, it's something unworthy of a serious critic's attention.”

Thinking Men Writing Book Feelings Romance Literature Attention Serious Standards Critics Beach Topics Unworthy About Family Double Standard

Author:Jennifer Weiner

“I sometimes read about authors who say they require a perfectly silent room maintained at precisely 68 degrees, with trash bags taped over the windows and a white-noise machine in the corner to write, and I think, 'Who are these people, and do any of them have kids?”

People Thinking Writing Sometimes Kids White Rooms Degrees Window Machines Silent Corners Noise Bags Trash White Noise

Author:Jennifer Weiner

“I've never gotten hired for drama because I'm a good improviser. I don't think people who write drama scripts want you playing with them as much.”

People Thinking Want Writing Drama Scripts

Author:Matt Walsh

“I heard so many stories from Gaomi's peasants that I had an irrepressible urge to write them down. Today, Gaomi's peasants know that they have become famous around the world through my writings, but I think they are a little puzzled by this.”

Thinking Knows World Writing Littles Stories Today Heard Around The World Urges Peasants Puzzled Irrepressible

Author:Mo Yan

“I think whatever an artist does, it just has to be quality and good. I think the way Kanye's doing what he's doing with the Auto-Tune is actually creative because he just writes good melodies. He just writes good songs. He's just gifted.”

Thinking Way Writing Doe Artist Song Quality Creative Tunes Melody Gifted Auto Tune

Author:Will Ferrell

“Most of my songs are pretty sketchy. There's not a lot of bass sections. I don't write big bridges. Sometimes I'll try. But it's hard for me to focus that way, because I always think it's more interesting to just see what will happen next.”

Thinking Way Writing Trying Sometimes Hard Bigs Happens Song Next Interesting Focus Bridges Sections Bass Sketchy

Author:Ryan Adams

“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

“Had I to give advice to writers (and I do not think they need it, because everyone has to find out things for himself), I would tell them simply this; I would ask them to tamper as little as they can with their own work. I do not think tinkering does any good. The moment comes when one has found out what one can do - when one has found one's natural voice, one's rhythm. Then I do not think that slight emendations should prove useful.”

Thinking Needs Giving Should Writing Littles Doe Moments Asks Found Voice Can Do Natural Advice Prove Rhythm Tinkering

Author:Jorge Luis Borges

“I think you will agree that I am alive in every part of this book; turn back twenty, thirty, one hundred pages - I am back there. That is why I hate the story; characters are not snakes that they must shed their skins on every page - there can only be one action: what a man is. When you have understood this, you will be through with novels.”

Thinking Men Writing Book Character Stories Action Hate Turns Novel Alive Pages Understood Hundred Skins I Hate Twenties Agree Thirty Shed Snakes I Am Alive

Author:Kenneth Patchen

“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

“You can teach almost anyone determined to learn them the basics required to write sentences and paragraphs that say what you want them to say clearly and concisely. It's far more difficult to get people to think like a writer, to give up conventional habits of mind and emotion. You must be able to step inside your character's skin, and at the same time to remain outside the dicey circumstances you have maneuvered her into.”

“...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.”

“I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books.”

Thinking Men Writing Book Young Turns Men And Women Young Man

Author:Paul Auster

“I think a lot of young aspiring writers get misdirected; they think 'I ought to write this, even though I enjoy reading that'. What you have to do is write what you enjoy reading.”

Thinking Writing Young Reading Enjoy Ought Aspiring Writers

Author:Jeffery Deaver

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