Writing Quotes

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

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

Benjamin Franklin

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

Lord Acton

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

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

E. L. Doctorow

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

Hermann Hesse

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

James Joyce

There are so many opportunities in life, that the loss of two or three capabilities is not necessarily debilitating. A handicap can give you the opportunity to focus more on art, writing, or music.

Jim Davis

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

Thomas Mann

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

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

Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise (1938)

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, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in the mirror which waits always before or behind.

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Of writing well the source and fountainhead is wise thinking.

Horace

Real seriousness in regard to writing is one of two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent.

Ernest Hemingway

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

Booker T. Washington

Good writing takes more than just time; it wants your best moments and the best of you.

Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher. com weblog, 10 - 09 - 04

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

Stanislaw J. Lec, "Unkempt Thoughts".

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

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

Cyril Connolly

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

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

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

Cyril Connolly

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

Sir Francis Bacon

Television has raised writing to a new low.

Samuel Goldwyn

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

When one is grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than speech - One does not, at least, hear how inadequate the words are.

George Eliot

In every bit of honest writing in the world, there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love.

John Steinbeck