Writing Quotes - Page 69

The only phenomenon with which writing has always been concomitant is the creation of cities and empires, that is the integration of large numbers of individuals into a political system, and their grading into castes or classes. It seems to have favored the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment.

Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago.

[P]eople need to use their intelligence to evaluate what they find to be true and untrue in the Bible. This is how we need to live life generally. Everything we hear and see we need to evaluate—whether the inspiring writings of the Bible or the inspiring writings of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, or George Eliot, of Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, or the Dalai Lama.

I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen.

One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up.

I dream too much, and I don't write enough, and I'm trying to find God everywhere.

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word [...] - a jouuuuuurney.

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.

The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.

You're not being paid by how hard you work, but by what you accomplish. If you can't hack it, pack it. Our challenge today is to look forward, to write our own history.

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

When you first start writing-and I think it's true for a lot of beginning writers-you're scared to death that if you don't get that sentence right that minute it's never going to show up again. And it isn't. But it doesn't matter-another one will, and it'll probably be better. And I don't mind writing badly for a couple of days because I know I can fix it-and fix it again and again and again, and it will be better.

Men are thinking, writing, and creating, because women were pouring their energy into those men; women are not creating culture because they are occupied with love.

We should think about what we mean by literacy. If you say, "He's a very literate person," what you really mean is that he knows a lot, thinks a lot, has a certain frame of mind that comes through reading and knowing about various subjects.The major route open to literacy has been through reading and writing text. But we're seeing new media offer richer ways to explore knowledge and communicate, through sound and pictures.

My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application-not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech-and learn them so well that words become works.

Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.

Some people possess talent, others are possessed by it. When that happens, a talent becomes a curse.

Blade Runner was the godfather of all these fantastic movies that occur today. What's frustrating is that we're short of really great writing and great ideas. Blade Runner was full of them.

You don't learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that truly matters to you.

When I write, I try to think back to what I was afraid of or what was scary to me, and try to put those feelings into books.

Write in the sand the flaws of your friend.

We preach sermons, write books on apologetics, conduct city-wide evangelistic campaigns. For those alienated from the church, that approach no longer has the same drawing power. And for the truly needy, words alone don't satisfy; "A hungry person has no ears," as one relief worker told me. A skeptical world judges the truth of what we say by the proof of how we live.

You have to keep challenging yourself. I've always tried to do that, and I'm not saying I've always been successful. Maybe I've rewritten the same song; it's inevitable, but I've always been mindful of taking the writing somewhere else. You can't stick in your little comfort zone.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.