Quotes about writ
writing men drunk
Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him. Samuel Johnson
writing mind suffering
If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in the pursuit of truth; if he writes not to make others learned, but to boast the learning which he possesses himself, and wishes to be admired rather than understood, he counteracts the first end of writing, and justly suffers the utmost severity of censure, or the more afflicting severity of neglect.
writing views desire
It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer to distinguish nature from custom; or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established; that he may neither violate essential principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of beauties within his view, by a needless fear of breaking rules which no literary dictator had authority to enact.
writing stories accord
Some of the best things that have happened in my stories have happened seemingly of their own accord. The writer becomes a listener, just writing things down as they come.
writing small-villages letters
It is in a small village in the Pyrenees where no one knows me 7that my life will come to a close.... There is not enough time remaining for me to write all the letters I would like to write.... Walter Benjamin
writing skills news
I have never pretended to be a great writer. I am totally immodest about being a great reporter and a good news writer. I write fast and I write accurately, nearly as accurately as anybody can be, and that's my skill. Walter Cronkite
writing knows know-how
To know whom to write for is to know how to write. Virginia Woolf
writing play ideas
When I was first starting to write plays, I quite literally had never heard of the idea of studying playwriting. I wouldn't have studied it even if I had heard of it. Wallace Shawn
writing islam satanic
When I was writing 'The Satanic Verses,' if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal. Salman Rushdie
writing advice done
Advice to beginning SF writers? Write a lot, finish what you write, and when it's done, keep sending it out for quite awhile. Rudy Rucker
writing people suggestions
Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion! I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion. Wendy Cope
writing years long
I seem to write an opera about every 20 years; if you live long enough you can write four operas. I finished my third in 1970. Virgil Thomson
writing night people
Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at night, but do not enter into relations. But not for the novel. W. H. Auden
writing class focus
Writers need to learn their trade, and how to negotiate the increasingly difficult marketplace. The trade can be taught and learned just as the craft can. But a workshop where the trade is the principal focus of interest is not a writing workshop. It is a business class. Ursula K. Le Guin
writing thinking pages
When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else. Roddy Doyle
writing people seductive
That is the operatic problem; the singer must keep up a big head of steam while trying to appear secretive, or seductive, or consumptive. Some ingenious composer should write an opera about a group of people who were condemned by a cruel god to scream all the time; it would be an instantaneous success, and a triumph of versimilitude. Robertson Davies
writing tasks difficult
The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.
writing cutting care
Many authors write like amateur blacksmiths making their first horseshoe; the clank of the anvil, the stench of the scorched leather apron, the sparks and the cursing are palpable, and this appeals to those who rank "sincerity" very high. Nabokov is more like a master swordsmith making a fine blade; nothing is amiss, nothing is too much, there is no fuss, and the finished product must be handled with great care, or it will cut you badly.
writing style doe
One does not consider style, because style is. Robert Stone
writing trying firsts
I write a very rough first draft of every chapter, then I rewrite every chapter. I try to get it down in the first rewrite, but some chapters I can't get quite right the third time. There are some I go over and over and over again.
writing personality poet
For a young and presumptuous poet a disposition to write satires is one of the most dangerous he can encourage. It tempts him to personalities, which are not always forgiven after he has repented and become ashamed of them. Robert Southey
writing creative-writing wells
By writing much, one learns to write well.
writing essence capture
All I've tried to do (with my writing) is capture the essence of my time. Robert Penn Warren
writing glory nancy
I don't expect you'll hear me writing any poems to the greater glory of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
writing doctors mind
When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge; I take them like opium; and consider one who writes them as a sort of doctor of the mind. Robert Louis Stevenson
writing thinking design
I have a way of filming things and staging them and designing sets. There were times when I thought I should change my approach, but in fact, this is what I like to do. It's sort of like my handwriting as a movie director. And somewhere along the way, I think I've made the decision: I'm going to write in my own handwriting. Wes Anderson
writing men thinking
I generalized rashly: That is what kills political writing, this absurd pretence that you are delivering a great utterance. You never do. You are just a puzzled man making notes about what you think. You are not building the Pantheon, then why act like a graven image? You are drawing sketches in the sand which the sea will wash away. Walter Lippmann
writing voice painting
Writing is the painting of the voice. Voltaire
writing should-have drawing
A drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. William Strunk, Jr.
writing interesting announcing
Instead of announcing what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so.
writing should-have drawing
A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
writing thinking years
I feel like I'm almost ready to write fiction about the border. But even after 10 years of writing nonfiction about it, I don't think I know quite enough to do it right. William T. Vollmann
writing thinking want
[Ernest ]Hemingway always said, "Write about what you know." I think you can do that, and if you want to write about what you don't know, you can. It just takes a lot more work.