Writing Quotes - Page 234

All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery.

In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.

Good writing is like a windowpane.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

We need deliberately to call to mind the joys of our journey. Perhaps we should try to write down the blessings of one day. We might begin; we could never end; there are not pens or paper enough in all the world.

William Shakespeare sounds to me like some kind of faggot.

For me, writing [was] a question of survival...I could not trust anyone, even my family. The atmosphere was so poisoned. People even in your own family could turn you in.

There's a level of realism you can only achieve through the imaginary.

Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only that one thinks it but also feels it.

And it's a necessity [for journalists] to pretend to be competent on every subject, some of which they really do not understand. They are under that necessity, I regret; I'm sorry for them. But to pretend to understand all the things you write about, and habitually to write about things you do not understand, is a very corrupting thing.

You already know when I'm writing, so don't be surprised if it's short and dry, because I'm too hungry to write anything fat

Hold fast to the diary from today on! Write regularly! Don't surrender! Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it every moment.

What I write is different from what I say, what I say is different from what I think, what I think is different from what I ought to think and so it goes further into the deepest darkness.

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.

I write the music I like. If other people like it, fine, they can go buy the albums. And if they don't like it, there's always Michael Jackson for them to listen to.

The day you write to please everyone you no longer are in journalism. You are in show business.

An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.

Wait a second while I take a swig off this bottle: it's my true and only Helicon, my Caballine fount, my sole Enthusiasm. Here, drinking, I deliberate, I reason, I resolve and conclude. After the epilogue I laugh, I write, I compose, I drink. Ennius drinking would write, writing would drink.

A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out.

The best fame is a writer's fame. It's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough to get you interrupted when you eat.

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.

I'm a full-time believer in writing habits...You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits or it dries up and blows awayOf course you have to make your habits in this conform to what you can do. I write only about two hours every day because that's all the energy I have, but I don't let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place.

Writing is like giving birth to a piano sideways. Anyone who perseveres is either talented or nuts.

In the same way that a woman becomes a prostitute. First I did it to please myself, then I did it to please my friends, and finally I did it for money.

I have to go on writing because I wouldn't be able to go on without writing. It is the only function that works for me, and without that function, I would die.