Good Writing Quotes - Page 5

• Good writing is good writing, but that doesn't mean you can't orchestrate it or tweak it.

  John Travolta

  Writing, Mean, Tweak

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• There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.

  Stephen Ambrose

  Writing, Way, Reader

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• Good writing is remembering detail. Most people want to forget. Don't forget things that were painful or embarrassing or silly. Turn them into a story that tells the truth.

  Paula Danziger

  Silly, Writing, People

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• It takes a lot of bad writing to get to a little good writing.

  Truman Capote

  Writing, Littles, Bad Writing

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• The only good writing is intuitive writing. It would be a big bore if you knew where it was going. It has to be exciting, instantaneous and it has to be a surprise. Then it all comes blurting out and it’s beautiful. I’ve had a sign by my typewriter for 25 years now which reads, ‘DON’T THINK!’

  Ray Bradbury

  Beautiful, Writing, Thinking

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• I had the most incredible English and literature teachers in school, and it really influenced my love of storytelling. It's what made me excited to study journalism in college. I love editorials and documentaries. All of that came from being given the opportunity to lose myself in good writing when I was a kid.

  Sophia Bush

  Teacher, Writing, School

  "Girl Crush Alert: How Sophia Bush Is Using Her Voice to Make a Difference" by Lauren Levinson, www.elle.com. August 15, 2013.

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• The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to the education and rank.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Long, Secret

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• Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, and good writing can be good selling.

  William Bernbach

  Art, Writing, Taste

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• All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.

  Francine Prose

  Writing, Skills, Creative

  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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• The point of good writing is knowing when to stop.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Inspirational, Writing, Knowing

  1917 Anne's House of Dreams, ch.24.

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• To my mind, nothing is as important as good writing, because in literature, the walls between people and cultures are broken down, and the things that plague us most—suspicion and fear of the other, and the tendency to see whole groups of people as objects, as monoliths of one cultural stereotype or another—are defeated. This work is not done as a job, ladies and gentlemen, it is done out of love for the art and the artists who brought it forth, and who still bring it forth to us, down the years and across ignorance and chaos and borderlines.

  Richard Bausch

  Art, Jobs, Wall

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• Brendan O’Meara’s Six Weeks in Saratoga is a victory to be savored by those who treasure good writing in general and tales of the track in particular. Horses may win races, but they also win hearts as this impressive book proves beyond doubt. A memorable, sure-footed debut.

  Madeleine Blais

  Horse, Book, Memorable

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• I Need a Good Book I need a good story. I need a good book. The kind that explodes Off the shelf. I need some good writing, Alive and exciting, To contemplate all by myself. I need a good novel, I need a good read. I probably need Two or three. I need a good tale Of love and betrayal Or perhaps an adventure at sea. I need a good saga. I need a good yarn. A momentous and mightily Or slight one. But with thousands and thousands And thousands of books, I need someone to tell me The right one. -John Lithgow

  John Lithgow

  Betrayal, Book, Writing

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• Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader's mind - -vividly, forcefully.

  Samuel R. Delany

  Writing, Errors, Mind

  Samuel R. Delany (2013). “About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, & Five Interviews”, p.16, Wesleyan University Press

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• A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.

  Garrison Keillor

  Writing, Ironic, Young Writers

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• I'm curious about writing in the age of online publishing. Because nobody cares about good writing online.

  Biz Stone

  Writing, Age, Care

  Source: therumpus.net

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• My fellow actors inspire me a lot and really good writing inspires me. And then trying to stick to the decision to only do something that I think will challenge me and that I, personally and very subjectively, I think is good not do something because I think it will bring me a lot of money or bring me a lot of awards. I've tried to very, very rigorously be highly subjective about what I do. And that's something that I think I have basically lived by.

  Glenn Close

  Writing, Thinking, Awards

  Source: www.movieweb.com

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• Good writing is good conversation, only more so.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Conversation, Good Conversation

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• Write for yourself, not for a perceived audience. If you do, you'll mostly fall flat on your face, because it's impossible to judge what people want. And you have to read. That's how you learn what is good writing and what is bad. Then the main thing is application. It's hard work.

  Wilbur Smith

  Fall, Hard Work, Writing

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• Good writing takes place at intersections, at what you might call knots, at places where the society is snarled or knotted up.

  Margaret Atwood

  Writing, Might, Knots

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Nov 08, 2011

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• Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Success, Communication, Writing

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• I write less about alcohol, less and less and less. You 're an addict - so of course you write about the thing you love most. I loved alcohol the most, loved it more than anybody or anything. That's what I wrote about. And it certainly accounted for some great writing. But it accounted for two or three years of good writing - it would never account for 20 years of good writing. I would have turned into Charles Bukowski. He wrote 10,000 poems and 10 of them were great.

  Sherman Alexie

  Writing, Two, Years

  David Lehman, Sherman Alexie (2015). “The Best American Poetry 2015”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

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• You have to go where the good writing is.

  Damian Lewis

  Writing

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• Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Writing, Order, Perfection

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.9

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• Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something-anything-down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft-you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft-you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.

  Anne Lamott

  Writing, Effort, Healthy

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