Writing Quotes - Page 223

Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed.

I did what most writers do at their beginnings: emulated my elders, imitated my peers, thus turning away from any possibility of discovering truths beneath my skin and behind my eye.

The trouble with a lot of people who try to write is they intellectualize about it. That comes after. The intellect is given to us by God to test things once they’re done, not to worry about things ahead of time.

Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.

Man has always been half-monster, half-dreamer.

The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight.

G.K. Chesterton once said: If something is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. I live by this philosophy when I teach writing. It seems to me vastly more important that a student try a new technique in her writing, and use it imperfectly, than never try the technique at all.

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.

There's so many different ways to write a rhyme its stupid man. I don't understand why the majority of the rap game sounds the same.

I think at some level, it's just alchemy that we, as writers, can't explain when we write the characters. I don't set out to create the characters - they're not, to me, collections of quirks that I can put together. I discover the characters, instead. I usually go through a standard set of interview questions with the character in the beginning and ask the vital stuff: What's important to you? What do you love? Hate? Fear? .. and then I know where to start. But the characters just grow on their own, at a certain point. And start surprising me.

Men aren't actively writing women to oppress them, men are writing what they know. I say you can be much better as a woman for women's rights if you just go up there and write your own material.

That's how it always is with me: the thing that sets me down to start writing is usually not what I end up doing. Because, as much as I love genre, and I try to deliver the goods, I go off from it. I go do my own thing.

If you find yourself imitating another writer, that doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially if you are a young or a new writer. However, you should be conscious of exactly how you are imitating him - word choice, sentence structure, motifs? - and think about why you're doing it.

Young writers shouldn't be afraid of striving to emulate their favorites. It's a good way to learn, as long as you move on from it and don't publish too many of the results.

Read like a butterfly, write like a bee.

I write what's given me to write.

Dear, I can't write, it's all a fantasy: a kind of circling obsession.

I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards. Okay, so I should revise my standards; I'm out of step. I should yield to reality. I have never yielded to reality. That's what SF is all about. If you wish to yield to reality, go read Philip Roth; read the New York literary establishment mainstream bestselling writers

I shift between mediums very frequently. Instead of taking a break from writing, I just write in a different medium or in a different way or for a different purpose, so that I don't actually stop writing - I just go to something else. Like going from a big symphony to a piano piece is great and very refreshing, I find. And then going from that to a big concerto, and then having to go out and play.

Don't sacrifice what you want most for what you want now. Write down what you want most and see it often.

In fiction, you have a rough idea what's coming up next - sometimes you even make a little outline - but in fact you don't know. Each day is a whole new - and for me, a very invigorating - experience.

Everything is in a script for a reason, and only by being part of a writing team (or writing it yourself), do you really understand the intention of every beat.

I'd say, don't listen to what anyone says: you're good. Go put your anorak on. Get your thick bottle-top specs. Draw your little cartoons and your comics and keep writing to the BBC.

I could not write my books without the library's help. Even with the ease of Internet research, I find books to be indispensable when I am writing. ... Books make me laugh, cry, and think. They give me insight into history, and into the lives of people in other cultures. They help me make important decisions, and they provide endless entertainment. Hooray for libraries!

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.