Quotes on Writing :: Finest Quotes

Writing Quotes

A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life. He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in.

Henry Miller

Unlike any other form of writing, the stories of episodic television require the blended imagination, talent, and tenacity of a staff of writers.

Daniel Petrie

For me, writing something in the spirit of Halloween is like Mother Teresa writing on charity and sacrifice. It's just second nature to me.

Danny Elfman

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

Cyril Connolly

The problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes.

Dave Barry

Genius, in one respect, is like gold; numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.

Charles Caleb Colton

Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander the Great, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science and learning, he shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of school, he spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line, he set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times.

Philip Schaff

If you can't turn yourself into your customer, you probably shouldn't be in the ad writing business at all.

Leo Burnett

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot...reading is the creative center of a writer's life...you cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

Stephen King

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.

Ernest Hemingway

If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.

Joyce Carol Oates

Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near-perfect method of writing avoidance.

Dan Greenburg

The Holocaust is a central event in many people's lives, but it also has become a metaphor for our century. There cannot be an end to speaking and writing about it. Besides, in Israel, everyone carries a biography deep inside him.

Aharon Appelfeld

Writing was like digging coal. I sweat blood. The spell is on me.

Zane Grey

Writing in my sixty-fourth year, I can truthfully say that since I reached the age of discretion I have consistently drunk more than most people would say is good for me. Nor did I regret it. Wine has been for me a firm friend and a wise counsellor. Often...wine has shown me matters in their true perspective, and has, as though by the touch of a magic wand, reduced great disasters to small inconveniences. Wine has lit up for me the pages of literature, and revealed in life romance lurking in the commonplace. Wine has made me bold but not foolish; has induced me to say silly things but not to do them.

Duff Cooper

Writing in my sixty-fourth year, I can truthfully say that since I reached the age of discretion I have consistently drunk more than most people would say is good for me. Nor did I regret it. Wine has been for me a firm friend and a wise counselor. Often...wine has shown me matters in their true perspective, and has, as though by the touch of a magic wand, reduced great disasters to small inconveniences. Wine has lit up for me the pages of literature and revealed in life romance lurking in the commonplace. Wine has made me bold but not foolish; has induced me to say silly things but not to do them.

Duff Cooper

Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.

Charles Caleb Colton

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Robert Benchley

Because good writing in a TV cartoon is so rare, I think the animation on The Simpsons is often overlooked.

Matt Groening

I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.

Clifford Geertz

I think that as I continue to write, my writing I hope will become more controversial and more provocative.

Christopher Darden

One of the side-effects of having your work appear in a public forum such as this is that people often email me asking for advice on how to break into writing, presumably figuring that if a drooling gum-brain like me can scrape a living witlessly pawing at a keyboard, there's hope for anyone.

Charlton

It was such a creative time. Everything was happening very fast. He was writing, I was singing. He was inspired, and I was inspired. I didn't really have time to think about it. I didn't really have time to read things about it, either. I got a sense of things, which made me quite nervous at times. But, no, we were running all the time then, doing things. It was fun, but also a lot of pressure.

Sarah Brightman

Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Andr Breton

My stories run up and bite me in the leg I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

Ray Douglas Bradbury

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