Writing Quotes

Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility.

Katherine Paterson, The Spying Heart, 1989

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

Thomas Mann

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

Hermann Hesse

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written in writing what deserves to be read and in so living as to make the world happier for our living in it.

Pliny the Elde

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.

Sir Francis Bacon

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice journalism what will be grasped at once.

Cyril Connolly

Writing is hard work and bad for the health.

E. B. White

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

Kahlil Gibran, Essay on Robert Frost, quoted in N. Y.. Times: Obit - Editorial, April 1982

Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple - Minded...

Plato, _Phaedrus_

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.

Edwin Schlossberg

In the next year or so, my signature will appear on 60 billion of United States currency. More important to me, however, is the signature that appears on my life - The strong, proud, assertive handwriting of a loving father and mother.

Katherine D. Ortega

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. N. B. This quote is commonly attributed to Voltaire, but it is not found in his writing.

S. G. Tallentyre

To attract good fortune, spend a new coin on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend, and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.

Chinese Prove

This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what you? re doing, or it comes out flat. You can? t fake your way through this.

Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher. com Weblog, January 29, 2004

The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way.

Richard Harding Davis

Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins commited in previous lives.

James Joyce

A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose.

Samuel McChord Crothers

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - Like writing a poem, or saying a prayer.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten - - Happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.

Brenda Ueland

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

Gene Fowle

Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy.

Charles Peters

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

Thomas Mann

That everybody is allowed to learn to read spoileth in the long run not only writing but thinking.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do things worth writing.

Benjamin Franklin

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

Lord Acton

I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose.

Ludwig van Beethoven

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

W. Somerset Maugham

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice journalism what will be read once.

Cyril Connolly

Report writing, like motor - Car driving and love - Making, is one of those activities which almost every Englishman thinks he can do well without instruction. The results are of course usually abominable.

Tom Margerison, "A Random Walk in Science" compiled by R. L. Weber, edited by E. Mendoza

Advice to writers: Sometimes you just have to stop writing. Even before you begin.

Stanislaw J. Lec, "Unkempt Thoughts".

No nation ancient or modern ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing, or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.

John Peter Zenge

Advice to writers Sometimes you just have to stop writing. Even before you begin.

Stanislaw Lec

When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly... I think - - Any fool can make a rule And every fool will mind it.

Henry David Thoreau

Writing 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 Capote

Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying or meditating or endeavoring something for the public good.

Thomas a Kempis

God is love, but get it in writing.

Gypsy Rose Lee

Television has raised writing to a new low.

Samuel Goldwyn