Quotes about writing
writing reality thinking
I'm not afraid to write about madness. I always figure that whatever most embarrasses you is something that everyone can relate to, really...because we're just not that different. So if you think, 'Oh my god, this is so embarrassing. I can't possibly talk about that,' and you write about it, the audience is gonna be like, 'that happened to me! David Sedaris
writing trying dialect
No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try.
writing thinking years
All of a sudden, when you're exposed to a large audience, they think you just started writing that day, but I started years before. I look back at things I wrote then and I'm so embarrassed - the writing seems so blocky and choppy to me and I wouldn't have wanted success any sooner because the writing was even worse.
writing doors class
In America, if your next-door neighbor has a Rolls-Royce, you want one too. But in England, if your neighbor has a Rolls-Royce, you want him to die in a fiery accident. That's a quote from someone else, but there's something about American optimism, that feeling you can do anything if you're at least middle class in America. If I can have a writing career, anyone can. There's nothing special about me.
writing thinking identity
I started writing one afternoon when I was twenty, and ever since then I have written every day. At first I had to force myself. Then it became part of my identity, and I did it without thinking.
writing giving people
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
writing insightful stories
A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.
writing firsts teach
When I teach writing, I have a mantra: Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer. David Morrell
writing typewriters hands
I write on the typewriter. I like it because I like the feeling of making something with my hands. I like pressing the key and a letter comes up and is printed on a piece of paper. I can understand that. David McCullough
writing focus needs
When you start to write, things begin to come into focus in a way they don't when you're not writing. It's a very good way to find out how much you don't know because you learn specifically what you need to know that you don't know at the moment by writing.
writing needs knows
In time I began to understand that it's when you start writing that you really find out what you don't know and need to know.
writing thinking wells
To write is to think, and to write well is to think well,
writing thinking suffering
The source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think....Let us dare to read, think, speak, write.
writing love-is thinking
I can fairly be called an amateur because I do what I do, in the original sense of the word - for love, because I love it. On the other hand, I think that those of us who make our living writing history can also be called true professionals.
writing years research
I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I had never been trained in an academic way how to go about the research.
writing independence firsts
According to Adams, Jefferson proposed that he, Adams, do the writing [pf the Declaration of Independence], but that he declined, telling Jefferson he must do it. Why?" Jefferson asked, as Adams would recount. Reasons enough," Adams said. What can be your reasons?" Reason first: you are a Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write ten times better than I can.
writing thinking wells
Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
writing temptation awful
There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.
writing people trying
You have to get inside the people you are writing about. You have to go below the surface. And that's to a very large degree what all writers are doing - they're trying to get below the surface. Whether it's in fiction or poetry or writing history and biography. Some people make that possible because they write wonderful letters and diaries. And you have to sort of go where the material is.
writing thinking play
You can't learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can't learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can't learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
writing lines matter
Write something every single day, even if it's just three lines. And it doesn't matter if it's any good - just write something every day. David Mitchell
writing editing self
Writing is probably one-fifth coming up with the stuff, and four-fifths self-editing again and again and again.
writing i-can
I can write pretty much anywhere.
writing
Lunatics are writers whose works write them.
writing winter would-be
How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards would be at one's throat all the sooner.
writing space effort
Now that I'm staring down the barrel of the last act of my life, I'm less excited about control and solo effort, and I resent the way the business aspects interfere with my space for creative writing. David Knopfler
writing scared difficult
I got scared away from the whole writing and producing thing, because of how really, truly difficult this was. David Krumholtz
writing
We had very, very, very little money to make the show [ Gigi Does It]. We shot every episode in two days. It was non-WGA, non-DGA, so we couldn't write anything. The whole thing had to be improv.
writing emotional thinking
In terms of writing, I think something happens to you, and you think, "Oh I'm going to write about that. That's an emotional event." But obviously, if you keep going, and it's something you do with regularity, you've got to find other ways to write. David Gray
writing way said
Hemingway said the only way to write about a place is to leave it. David Guterson
writing my-family
What sustains me is to be with my family and to write.
writing college class
When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer.
writing inspire stories
I write because something inner and unconscious forces me to. That is the first compulsion. The second is one of ethical and moral duty. I feel responsible to tell stories that inspire readers to consider more deeply who they are.