A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed keeping rabbits.
Dame Edith SitwellThe main thing is to keep yourself awake [on writing]
Margaret AtwoodOne must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson'Rock is all about writing your own script; it's all about pioneering.'
Courtney LoveWriting has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself
Truman CapoteA life that is worth writing at all is worth writing minutely
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowSometimes I think my writing sounds like I walked out of the room and left the typewriter running.
Gene FowlerWriting is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.
Gene FowlerSongwriting is one of those strange arts whereby you can have no inspiration for a long time then have a productive period where almost every day a new song is coming to you.
Nanci GriffithWriting books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.
Norman MailerI am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden.
Frances Hodgson BurnettEssentially and most simply put, plot is what the characters do to deal with the situation they are in. It is a logical sequence of events that grow from an initial incident that alters the status quo of the characters. [on the science, or art, of writing a book]
Elizabeth GeorgeMy two best pieces would have to be Ghosts of Mississippi and my new film Bookworm. Bookworm was special for me to do because I really idolize the writings of Mamet. Also, I got to work with Tony Hopkins, and I really love Tony.
Alec BaldwinI began writing after my child was seriously hurt in a day care center accident, and I wanted to come home to be with her during her recovery.
Leslie BanksWriting something in the spirit of Halloween is like Mother Teresa writing on charity and sacrifice!
Danny ElfmanI think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity, if I have any - after all, most people are unhappy, don't you think?
Philip LarkinI spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa.
John DaltonInflated descriptions by the pen or exaggerated illustrations by the pencil. [On writing]
Grace DarlingAlways be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
Cyril ConnollyThe writings of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander
Walter LandorIt is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.
Jack KerouacThere's nothing like music. It's seductive, it's all-consuming, it's emotional, it's infinitely creative... I was a singer-songwriter, not particularly talented musically [that's never stopped anyone before] but drawn to the craft of songwriting.
Jeffrey DeaverI wish that dear Karl could have spent more time acquiring capital instead of merely writing about it.
Jenny MarxI don't plan to write another science book, but I don't plan not to. I do enjoy writing histories, and taking subjects that are generally dull and trying to make them interesting.
Bill BrysonEither write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Benjamin FranklinWriting a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
Don MarquisPlaywriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to.
T S EliotI love opera, I love writing for the voice, I love telling stories with music.
Anthony DavisWhen I first started writing, I was in advertising at the time, I was doing most of my writing on weekends. I had studied most of the other series heroes and I figured it would be fun for mine to be different and put him in and around water.
Clive CusslerWriting a book is not as tough as it is to haul thirty-five people around the country and sweat like a horse five nights a week.
Bette MidlerWhen you are writing poetry I often observe this serene sort of calmness that possesses you and takes you quite away from the immediate realities of life.
Annie FieldsI am writing a book about the Crusades so dull that I can scarcely write it.
Hilaire BellocWould you not like to try all sorts of lives - one is so very small - but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.
Katherine MansfieldOriginality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.
Isaac SingerTo me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.
Truman CapoteI have been writing in spurts, bit by bit. It is incredibly difficult. Everything is corroded, broken, dismantled; everything is covered with hardened layers of accumulated insensitivity, deafness, entrenched routine. It is disgusting.
Boris PasternakWhen you start writing the magic comes when the characters seem to take on a life of their own and write the words for themselves.
Alice HoffmanThe difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a baby made in a test tube.
Norman MailerThere are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W Somerset Maugham'If you're writing songs, there are two things that you just don't write about: politics and religion. We write about both.'
BonoThere is something wonderful about singing and writing music, I think there is something special about creativity and the ability humans have in that area.
Kim GordonNo machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding. [not at the time of writing anyhow Louis, who knows what the future will bring!]
Louis GerstnerThe only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any.
Russell BakerTelevision has raised writing to a new low.
Samuel GoldwynAs far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings.
Boris PasternakWriting stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad and, even more terrifying, the difference between it and true art. And after that, the whip came down.
Truman CapoteI will carry on writing, to be sure. But I don't know if I would want to publish again [after Harry Potter]
J K RowlingSong writing is my life and what I am about, and it's all I have ever really wanted to do.
Eddie FloydTalent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary
Jessamyn WestLooking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.
Katherine Mansfield
Pick another category
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