Quotes about writing
writing should easier
You should make it hard on yourself to write so you’re easier to read. Fran Lebowitz
writing opposites long
I have the exact opposite problem of every writer I've ever met: Every writer I've ever met writes things that are too long, and they have to edit them down.
writing people tvs
I'm not a nervous person. I'm not afraid to be on TV. I'm only afraid when I write. When I'm at my desk I feel like most people would feel if they went on TV.
writing mines
There is nothing more mine than my writing, nothing I'm more proprietary about.
writing thinking hard-times
I have a hard time writing. Most writers have a hard time writing. I have a harder time than most because I'm lazier than most. [...] The other problem I have is fear of writing. The act of writing puts you in confrontation with yourself, which is why I think writers assiduously avoid writing. [...] Not writing is more of a psychological problem than a writing problem. All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. [...] It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. Especially when it goes on for years. It's much more relaxing actually to work.
writing thinking six
Instead of writing it wrong six times and then writing it right, I think it wrong six times and then write it right the seventh time.
writing profession exhausting
Not writing is probably the most exhausting profession I've ever encountered.
writing fate car
If, while watching the sun set on a used-car lot in Los Angeles, you are struck by the parallels between this image and the inevitable fate of humanity, do not, under any circumstances, write it down.
writing criminals horrible
All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. It's much more relaxing to actually write.
writing tables fame
The best fame is a writer's fame. It's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough to get you interrupted when you eat.
writing glasses effort
I went to the trash pile at Tuskegee Institute and started my laboratory with bottles, old fruit jars and any other thing I found I could use. ... [The early efforts were] worked out almost wholly on top of my flat topped writing desk and with teacups, glasses, bottles and reagents I made myself. George Washington Carver
writing thinking persona
I think it's basically the same game, although with a public figure like [Donald] Trump I think you are bound to consider the public persona rather than the private one. At least that was the case with that piece of writing. George Saunders
writing thinking style
I'm always aware of writing around things I can't do, and I've come to think that that's actually what 'style' is - an avoidance of your deficiencies.
writing adventure young-friends
Never have I enjoyed youth so thoroughly as I have in my old age. In writing Dialogues in Limbo, The Last Puritan, and now all these descriptions of the friends of my youth and the young friends of my middle age, I have drunk the pleasure of life more pure, more joyful than it ever was when mingled with all the hidden anxieties and little annoyances of actual living. Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure. George Santayana
writing people political
Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own orthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened. George Orwell
writing good-writing thrive
Good writing is like a windowpane.
writing effort leaving
By using stale metaphors, similes and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself.
writing window-panes should
Good prose should be transparent, like a window pane.
writing successful artist
Sheer egoism... Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen - in short, with the whole top crust of humanity.
writing people frightened
Good novel are written by people who are not frightened.
writing political-language trying
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
writing trying remember
I don't remember a lot of what I write. I try to release it after it's out there so that I can be fresh again. George Meyer
writing reality balls
Experience as much as you can and absorb a lot of reality. Otherwise, your writing will have the force of a Wiffle ball.
writing thinking epiphany
I have epiphanies all the time, because I'm always thinking. I'm a thinker. I'm always writing poetry, I'm always coming to conclusions. Chrisette Michele
writing jigsaw-puzzles pieces
Songwriting is like working on a jigsaw puzzle, and it doesn't make any sense until you find that last piece. It has to make sense or it doesn't work. Chrissie Hynde
writing thinking jokes
The thing about Donald [Trump] is the jokes write themselves. I don't even think of it to be trolling. What he says is the joke. Chrissy Teigen
writing want interviews
Basically, it's somebody who got stuck having to interview me who really wants to be a novelist, so they're writing these novellas and I was like, "It's not true, that didn't happen, they just made all that up! Why don't they just go ahead and be a novelist instead of bothering with interviewing me?" Christian Bale
writing character people
You can't really write until the characters kind of show up one day and tell you what they're going to say. You start to hear the rhythm of the way the people talk, and then it becomes easier. Chris Terrio
writing strange-places people
The Internet is a fantastic, strange place where you can write an open letter and be reasonably assured that people are going to read it. Chris Weitz
writing asking-questions illustration
At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration. Chris Van Allsburg
writing years eight
I write for what's left of the eight-year-old still rattling around inside my head
writing thinking two
As an actor, I never really had a strategy. I just take projects, as they come. It all comes down to the writing, at the end of the day, for me. I don't care if it's a two-line cameo or the lead of the thing, as long as the project has some weight behind the writing and it's interesting and I think people will enjoy it. Chris Vance
writing ambition exercise
Fortunately, I'm able to make a living from comics, so I'm privileged enough to be quite choosy, though most cartoonists can't afford to be. It's really an uncomfortable situation, since I'm not an illustrator, though I do get calls from morally indefensible businesses offering me money to decorate their ambitions. It's extremely rare, almost unheard of, in fact, that I am asked to do a comic strip. Do writers get calls to pen Toyota advertisements? Do composers get asked to write chamber pieces about exercise machines? Chris Ware