Quotes about writing
writing men want
The best way to learn to write is to study the work of the men and women who are doing the kind of writing you want to do. William Zinsser
writing people style
Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.
writing choices celebrate
Writers can write to affirm and to celebrate, or they can write to debunk and destroy; the choice is ours.
writing two people
A writer is obviously at his most natural and relaxed when he writes in the first person. Writing is a personal transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and the transaction will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity.
writing problem writing-well
All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.
writing-well subjects sells
Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.
writing
A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.
writing people hardest
If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.
writing alive written
To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
writing voice musical
My commodity as a writer, whatever I'm writing about, is me. And your commodity is you. Don't alter your voice to fit the subject. Develop one voice that readers will recognize when they hear it on the page, a voice that's enjoyable not only in its musical line but in its avoidance of sounds that would cheapen its tone: breeziness and condescension and clichés.
writing clear sentences
A clear sentence is no accident.
writing numbers way
The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis.
writing thinking clear
Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other.
writing people ego
I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.
writing jargon disease
Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.
writing thinking soul
Writing is not a special language that belongs to a few sensitive souls who have a 'gift for words'. Writing is the logical arrangement of thought. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly---about any subject at all.
writing simplicity humanity
Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.
writing hard-work people
Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do
writing people want
If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.
writing thinking paper
Writing is thinking on paper.
writing cab-drivers want
When you're in Los Angeles, everybody you meet is writing a movie, and they want you to be in it. Every cab driver is writing a movie! William Sadler
writing nouns use
Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available? William Safire
writing mean two
Cast aside any column about two subjects. It means the pundit chickened out on the hard decision about what to write about that day.
writing long use
It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
writing cutting thinking
If you want to "get in touch with your feelings," fine, talk to yourself. We all do. But if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order, give them a purpose, use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down, and then cut out the confusing parts.
writing cutting artist
All writing is in fact cut-ups. A collage of words read heard overheard. What else? William S. Burroughs
writing reality
Yes, for all of us in the Shakespeare Squadron, writing is just that: not an escape from reality, but an attempt to change reality.
writing thinking audience
I think all writers write for an audience. There is no such thing as writing for yourself.
writing purpose criminals
The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals.
writing
[Jack] Kerouac was writing fiction. What he did when he wrote about me...he made me out with Russian Countesses and Swiss accounts and other things I didn't have or didn't happen and so on.
writing psychics space
In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.
writing thinking order
You do an awful lot of bad writing in order to do any good writing. Incredibly bad. I think it would be very interesting to make a collection of some of the worst writing by good writers.
writing order giving
England has the most sordid literary scene I've ever seen. They all meet in the same pub. This guy's writing a foreword for this person. They all have to give radio programs, they have to do all this just in order to scrape by. They're all scratching each other's backs.