1,322 quotes found
“At its most basic we are only discussing a learned skill, but do we not agree that sometimes the most basic skills can create things far beyond our expectations? We are talking about tools and carp...”
“Writing is easy. Writing well is hard work.”
“Tighten your prose so the story flows.”
“First drafts dont have to be perfect. They just have to be written.”
“You will do well not to write for money, not because you won't get rich doing it, but because writing fueled by that sort of motivation becomes dull and lifeless and mediocre.”
“One idea to a sentence is still the best advice that anyone has ever given on writing.”
“The only way you'll find out if you "have it in you" is to get to work and see if you do. The only way to override your "limitations, insecurities, jealousies, and ineptitude" is to produce. You ha...”
“You can swap the message around, and whatever the particular norm is, or whatever the particular message is, when you put your pet-peeve message before story, odds are you are going to bore the shi...”
“Good writing just isn't that common.”
“You have to finish things thats what you learn from, you learn by finishing things.”
“An author needs a lot more than one person to succumb to his literary seductive charms, but, like Saul, he must realize that he doesn't have to--and indeed cannot--capture the hearts of every possi...”
“Maybe those sailors will write bad poems, but the same men would have kept dull diaries, too. The problem has to do not with the evidence but with the witness. The point is not the adventure but th...”
“I'm going to write a novel and get it published. I'm going to do it because writing a novel is worthwhile and because I have the talent to do it.I'm going to do it because I have something importan...”
“Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.”
“Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's a valid part of any endeavour, not just writing.”
“I'm not a parenting expert by any means, but I've been interviewing and writing about kids for almost 20 years.”
“When you're writing, you're only a brain and some fingers, but drumming, you're involving all four limbs, and you're hearing stuff and you're converting your ideas into physical motions, getting ph...”
“One of my favorite things I read was John Steinbeck's journals while he was writing 'East of Eden,' which was so cool.”
“I suppose there must be idiots who dream of signing deals with publishers while fully intending to drink martinis in cool bars or ride around on skateboards. But the actual writers I know are exper...”
“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”
