Writing Quotes - Page 88

Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more ­effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.

When I was young, I just sat down and started playing Chopsticks at the piano. I got so far and then lost interest. Eventually, I regained it and started writing songs.

You may be able to write a novel, you may not. You will never know until you have worked very hard indeed and written at least part of it. You will never really know until you have written the whole of it and submitted it for publication.

If all the ancient sacred writings had been preserved, some would be found to be heretical.

I think that you have to restrain yourself from googling your name and have other hobbies and desires and wants. You do a million things. You go to school, you write, you read, you blog.

Writing can be a bit like unfolding something...Slowly, the writer reveals what's happening. But that's only half of what's going on. Writers are very cunning people who are not only unfolding and revealing. Just like conjurors and magicians, they are hiding stuff too.

The fastest way to teach a child to read is to teach them to write.

Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.

Drawing is the first language of the human being before writing. It's a transcription of how the human being sees reality, not reality itself.

I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphabet.

A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.

It is easier to produce ten volumes of philosophical writings than to put one principle into practice.

I've never been a very prolific person, so when creativity flows, it flows. I find myself scribbling on little notepads and pieces of loose paper, which results in a very small portion of my writings to ever show up in true form.

I feel like I'm too busy writing history to read it.

Each of us is comprised of stories, stories not only about ourselves but stories about ancestors we never knew and people we've never met. We have stories we love to tell and stories we have never told anyone. The extent to which others know us is determined by the stories we choose to share. We extend a deep trust to someone when we say, "I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone." Sharing stories creates trust because through stories we come to a recognition of how much we have in common.

He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink.

I edit as I go. Especially when I go to commit it to paper. I prefer a typewriter even to a computer. I don't like it. There's no noise on the computer. I like a typewriter because I am such a slow typist. I edit as I am committing it to paper. I like to see the words before me and I go, "Yeah, that's it." They appear before me and they fit. I don't usually take large parts out. If I get stuck early in a song, I take it as a sign that I might be writing the chorus and don't know it. Sometimes,you gotta step back a little bit and take a look at what you're doing.

The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections, and even prejudices of a given generation.

Freddie and Brian tend to write the majority of the material.

I've always been trying to write songs like Lightfoot. A song of mine like 'Come Monday' is a direct result of me trying to write a Gordon Lightfoot song.

There are so many opportunities in life, that the loss of two or three capabilities is not necessarily debilitating. A handicap can give you the opportunity to focus more on art, writing, or music.

Hunter can write a melody and stuff like that, but his forte is lyrics. He can write a serviceable melody to hang his lyrics on, and sometimes he comes up with something really nice.

I try to write in plain brown blocks of American speech but occasionally set in an ancient word or a strange word just to startle the reader a little bit and to break up the monotony of the plain American cadence.

When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

History -- its what those bitter old men write.