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Writing Quotes

Quotes tagged as "writing" Showing 91-120 of 14,907
Isabel Allende
“Write what should not be forgotten.”
Isabel Allende

Rainer Maria Rilke
“Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.

This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,� then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose...

...Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds â€� wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

Dorothy Parker
“I hate writing, I love having written.”
Dorothy Parker

J.R.R. Tolkien
“I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”
J.R.R. Tolkien

Stephen        King
“Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”
Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Franz Kafka
“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity."

[Letter to Max Brod, July 5, 1922]”
Franz Kafka

Virginia Woolf
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Rainer Maria Rilke
“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

Stephen        King
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Charles Bukowski
“great writers are indecent people
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.

good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead
it means I made it.”
Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne

David Levithan
“This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it’s just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be.”
David Levithan, Every Day

Kingsley Amis
“If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.”
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim

George Orwell
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
George Orwell, Why I Write

Anne Lamott
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

James A. Michener
“I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”
James Michener

Maya Angelou
“When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”
Maya Angelou

Virginia Woolf
“A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen.”
Virginia Woolf, Orlando

John Cheever
“Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaosâ€� to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream.”
John Cheever

Ray Bradbury
“The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.”
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

John Green
“Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it."

[Thoughts from Places: The Tour, Nerdfighteria Wiki, January 17, 2012]”
John Green

“You know, it's hard work to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I really get going on an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic.”
Ellen DeGeneres, The Funny Thing Is...

Criss Jami
“Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.”
Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality

Stephen        King
“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.”
Stephen King

Eleanor Roosevelt
“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

Michael Cunningham
“One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.”
Michael Cunningham

Richard Price
“You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying in the road.”
Richard Price

Cornelia Funke
“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”
Cornelia Funke

Shannon L. Alder
“There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.”
Shannon L. Alder

Charles Bukowski
“some moments are nice, some are
nicer, some are even worth
writing
about.”
Charles Bukowski, War All the Time: Poems 1981 - 1984