Writing Quotes - Page 26

I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.

Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it.

All stories interest me, and some haunt me until I end up writing them. Certain themes keep coming up: justice, loyalty, violence, death, political and social issues, freedom.

If you have not done things worthy of being written about, at least write things worthy of being read.

I don't write hits for myself, or for other artists, or to just be writing it. I write it because I was born to do this. I was given this gift and I'm making the most of my opportunity.

He writes so well he makes me feel like putting my quill back in my goose.

Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse)

Writing is a very strenuous thing - it's like banging your head against a wall. At the end of the day, acting is better, just because nobody ever asked me if I wanted a Pellegrino in the writer's room.

I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer.

I have a journalism degree, but I'd rather be the person who is being written about rather than the person who is writing.

Always be a poet, even in prose.

I write about moments, and I don't make blanket statements about anything because no one has all the answers; nobody's come up with a foolproof way to do anything when it comes to emotions.

It's okay to disagree with the thoughts or opinions expressed by other people. That doesn't give you the right to deny any sense they might make. Nor does it give you a right to accuse someone of poorly expressing their beliefs just because you don't like what they are saying. Learn to recognize good writing when you read it, even if it means overcoming your pride and opening your mind beyond what is comfortable.

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. . . . Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

one must verge on the unknown, write toward the truth hitherto unrecognizable of one’s own sincerity, including the avoidable beauty of doom, shame, and embarrassment, that very area of personal self-recognition,(detailed individual is universal remember) which formal conventions, internalized, keep us from discovering in ourselves and others

Equal interchange of goods and service between buyer and seller is the keynote of tomorrow's business world when the vision of the modern business man awakens him to the wisdom of writing that policy into his code of ethics.

You must understand that when you are writing a novel you are not making anything up. It's all there and you just have to find it.

He who writes poetry is not a poet. He whose poetry has become his life, and who has made his life his poetry - it is he who is a poet.

Perfume is a form of writing, an ink, a choice made in the first person, the dot on the i, a weapon, a courteous gesture, part of the instant, a consequence.

If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work.

When you do your research write down whatever interests you. Whatever stimulates your imagination. Whatever seems important. A story is built like a stone wall. Not all the stones will fit. Some will have to be discarded. Some broken and reshaped. When you finish the wall it may not look exactly like the wall you envisioned, but it will keep the livestock in and the predators out. (pg. 144)

There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.

Sure, I have advice for people starting to write. Don't. I don't need the competition.

I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes.

If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.