Writing Quotes

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

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

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

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

Fiction writing is great. You can make up almost anything.

Ivana Trump

My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am, Encompass worlds but never try to encompass me, I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you. Writing and talk do not prove me, I carry the plenum of proof in my face, With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.

Walt Whitman

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

Stanislaw Lec

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

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

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert Heinlein

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

E. L. Doctorow

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

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

Cyril Connolly

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

Thomas Mann

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

Benjamin Franklin

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

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

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

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

Cyril Connolly

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

Major writing is to say what has been seen, so that it need never be said again.

Delmore Schwartz

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

Thomas a Kempis

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

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

Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making.

John Milton

Vigorous writing is concise.

William Strunk Jr., "The Elements of Style", 1919

In the modern world, in which thousands of people are dying every hour as a consequence of politics, no writing anywhere can begin to be credible unless it is informed by political awareness and principles. Writers who have neither product utopian trash.

John Berge

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

Real Live Preache