Good Writing Quotes - Page 3

• All I've tried to do as an actor is follow the good writing. That's been my main drive. It's not always possible, so when you do come upon it, like when I came upon this, you realize pretty quickly this is something you need to be involved with.

  Cillian Murphy

  Writing, Needs, Actors

  "The Shy Man’s Revenge". Interview with Chris Wallace, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 17, 2014.

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• As I started to read nonfiction in the mid '70s, I discovered, holy cow, there was a lot of imaginative nonfiction. Not the kind where people use composite characters and invented quotes. I hate that kind of nonfiction. But imaginative in the sense that good writing and unexpected structure and vivid reporting could be combined with presenting facts.

  David Quammen

  Hate, Writing, Character

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this.

  E. Nesbit

  Writing, People, Wonder

  E. Nesbit (2013). “Delphi Complete Novels of E. Nesbit”, p.23, Delphi Classics

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• If a man means his writing seriously, he must mean to write well. But how can he write well until he learns to see what he has written badly. His progress toward good writing and his recognition of bad writing are bound to unfold at something like the same rate.

  John Ciardi

  Writing, Mean, Men

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• All good writing is built one good line at a time. You build a novel the same way you do a pyramid. One word, one stone at a time, underneath a full moon while the fingers bleed.

  Kate Braverman

  Writing, Moon, Pyramids

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• I never feel more myself than when I’m writing; I never enjoy any day more than a good writing day.

  Anthony Minghella

  Writing, Enjoy, Feels

  Interview with Robert J. Elisberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 1999.

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• Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.

  John Edgar Wideman

  Writing, Scary, Important

  John Edgar Wideman, Bonnie TuSmith (1998). “Conversations with John Edgar Wideman”, p.98, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Good writing is formed partly through plan and partly through accident.

  Ken Macrorie

  Writing, Plans, Accidents

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• Most good writing is clear, vigorous, honest, alive, sensuous, appropriate, unsentimental, rhythmic, without pretension, fresh, metaphorical, evocative in sound, economical, authoritative, surprising, memorable, and light.

  Ken Macrorie

  Memorable, Writing, Light

  Ken Macrorie (1985). “Telling Writing”, Boynton/Cook

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• Every page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and small deliberations. All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another. And what grabs and keeps our interest has everything to do with those choices.

  Francine Prose

  Writing, Skills, Choices

  Francine Prose (2009). “Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them”, p.16, Harper Collins

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• Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.

  Pat Conroy

  Writing, Thinking, Form

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• That is as true for fiction or non-fiction. The writer has to really know their subject. It is really important to remember that the readers are a lot smarter than the writer. Also, good writing has to do with rewriting. You will never get it right the first time. So you rewrite and rewrite again until you get it right. Until you, and the reader, will be able to visualize what you're writing about.

  Michael Scott

  Writing, Important, Fiction

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• I'm not an ad-libber. If I'm asked to ad-lib, I can ad-lib forever and it's really fun to do that, but I find that well-written scripts are put together very carefully. Once you start to ad-lib and add words to sentences, there's a slacking that happens. When it's good writing, it's taut. I'm not judging people who do ad-lib.

  James Marsters

  Fun, Writing, People

  Source: collider.com

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• I'm so respectful of good writing. It's the blueprint for the movie. You have to have that script there because, if you don't, you're going to have problems. It's very important. It's also a gut instinct.

  Molly Shannon

  Writing, Important, Scripts

  Source: collider.com

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• So far as good writing goes, the use of the exclamation mark is a sign of failure. It is the literary equivalent of a man holding up a card reading LAUGHTER to a studio audience.

  Miles Kington

  Laughter, Reading, Writing

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• Good writing , like gold , combines lustrous lucidity with high density. What this means is good writing is packed with hints.

  Eric Hoffer

  Writing, Mean, Gold

  "Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

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• Knowledge is the foundation and source of good writing.
  [Lat., Scibendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.]

  Horace

  Writing, Foundation, Source

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• You have to be an extremely good reader to appreciate what a good writer is. There are some people who are completely insensitive to good writing.

  Robert Caro

  Writing, People, Appreciate

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• Comedy is more difficult than drama. I think it's really difficult to make someone laugh because people have very different comedic sensibilities. In drama, you can get away with being a great actor and surrounded by great actors and having good writing. But in comedy you have to listen and you have to perform with a certain rhythm, because if you don't, it's like playing a wrong note in the orchestra and you can hear the off key and it will fall flat and you won't get that instant response.

  Aimee Garcia

  Drama, Fall, Writing

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• I think that good writing is based on good reading. Maybe it's not about writing today, maybe it's about reading today. Maybe it's about finding the sort of book you would never read.

  Saul Williams

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Source: www.mtv.com

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• Good writing must stay open to the questions and not fall prey to the pull of a polemic, otherwise, words simply become predictable, sentimental, and stale.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Fall, Writing, Sentimental

  Terry Tempest Williams (2006). “A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams”, Utah State Univ Pr

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• I don't want to speak too disparagingly of my generation (actually I do, we had a chance to change the world and opted for the Home Shopping Network instead), but there was a view among the student writers I knew at that time that good writing came spontaneously, in an uprush of feeling that had to be caught at once; when you were building that all-important stairway to heaven, you couldn't just stand around with your hammer in your hand.

  Stephen King

  Home, Writing, Views

  "On Writing". Book by Stephen King, 1999.

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• Sometimes with certain writing, you feel like you've got to be literal, hit it hard on the nose, just to get the point across. Good writing is more subversive I think - or good scenes. They are about one thing on the page but you can make it about something completely different.

  Chace Crawford

  Writing, Thinking, Pages

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.

  Jessamyn West

  Writing, Garden, Self

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• And the writers are good in that it's easy to memorize, and good writing has an innate rhythm to it. And I've always felt that it's easier to get in your head than writing that has very kind of mind busting moments.

  Glenn Close

  Writing, Mind, Kind

  "Glenn Close Embraces Damages". Interview with Evan Jacobs, October 24, 2007.

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