Great Writers Quotes - Page 6

• The blog is certainly another tool for writers out there to break their way in. But being a blogger does not make you a great writer.

  Julie Powell

  Doe, Tools, Way

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• When you're in a band with three writers, three great writers, you only get one third of the writer thing. So that's the whole reason that I did a solo career. And that's, you know, when I told Fleetwood Mac I was going to do that, they were of course terrified that I would do that record and then that I would quit.

  Stevie Nicks

  Careers, Three, Band

  "Stevie Nicks: 'When We Walk Into The Room, We Have To Float In Like Goddesses'". Interview with Ann Powers, www.npr.org. March 17, 2013.

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• There are other great writers who are not read properly in their own day for the reason, perhaps, that their readers are not yet born. What they have to say to their own generation is said so at cross-purposes and with such apparent irrelevance that it is not understood. They are, as it were, giants who tower above their own age to cast their shadows across the next.

  Caroline Gordon

  Irrelevance, Shadow, Age

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• The bible is very resonant. It has everything, creation, betrayal, lust, poetry, prophecy, sacrifice. All great things are in the bible and all great writers have drawn from it and more than people realise, whether Shakespeare, Herman Melville or Bob Dylan. Of course there are stories that are still relevant and inspiring; lessons that need to be taught over and over again. And they give people hope.

  Patti Smith

  Betrayal, Sacrifice, People

  Source: www.independent.co.uk

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• There are many people writing songs. That is absolutely wonderful. Who knows, there may be some kid in diapers and he or she might succeed in capturing in a few dozen words what great writers have spent years trying to say. Just the right word in the right place with the right melody behind it and the right rhythm. It might get around the world inch by inch, and people realize that this world is in danger, that we're in danger. That's the way "This Land Is Your Land" got to be so well known.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Kids, Writing

  Source: www.wholeearth.com

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• I was intoxicated by the romantic poetry of our great writers. I arranged the world according to my private use, looking at it through the poems I had devoured.

  Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont

  Use, World, Romantic Poetry

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• Truthfully, I guess I would like to be remembered as a great writer and a kind person. I wouldn't mind if an expensive bag were named after me, like Jane Birkin.

  Mindy Kaling

  Mind, Bags, Kind

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• I wish I was a great writer or a great journalist or a great scientist or a great artist; I'm not.

  Nicolas Berggruen

  Artist, Wish, Scientist

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• In Europe, I'm recognized on the street sometimes. And that's cool, because I don't have to live there and deal with it every day. Unless you're Stephen King - a great writer, by the way, and anyone who says different knows nothing about the craft - you're more likely to be recognized in America if you play in a soap opera than if you're a novelist.

  George Pelecanos

  Kings, Europe, Play

  Interview with Keith Phipps, www.avclub.com. September 19, 2001.

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• No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the Prize can accept it other than with humility. There is no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to his knowledge and his conscience.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Humility, Needs, May

  Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun, Hermann Hesse (1971). “Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse”

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• A great writer is nothing less than a martyr who does not die.

  Honore de Balzac

  Doe, Martyr, Dies

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• There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Bad Ass, Typewriters

  "Exclusive: Never-Before-Seen Photos from Hemingway's Childhood" by James Joiner, www.esquire.com. October 24, 2013.

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• There is no great writing, only great rewriting.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Writing, Rewriting, Great Writing

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• Edgar Allan Poe is considered the great writer of horror stories, perhaps the greatest - I will say the greatest

  William Friedkin

  Horror Stories, Allan Poe, Stories

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• I'm pleased to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I realize I am a writer people buy to take on vacation.

  Maeve Binchy

  Vacation, People, Insane

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• A creative writing program is only as good as its teachers, and I was fortunate in having two great writers as mentors.

  Jay McInerney

  Teacher, Writing, Two

  "Novelist Jay McInerney on Getting Your Novel Underway". Interview with Anne Bowling, www.writersdigest.com. March 11, 2008.

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• The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other well.

  Elias Canetti

  Inspirational, Aphorism, Wells

  The Human Province "1943" (1978) (translation by Joachim Neugroschel)

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• King Arthur and his armored goons of the Round Table functioned as the Politburo of a slave state: Camelot. Of all who have written on the Matter of Arthur, from Malory to White, only Mark Twain understood this. But Mark Twain was a great writer.

  Edward Abbey

  Kings, White, Tables

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.21, RosettaBooks

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• I've known Shawn for several years. And he's just an amazing talent. He's a great writer, a marvelous, marvelous guitar player, and plays really good fiddle.

  Guy Clark

  Player, Guitar, Years

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• The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.

  James A. Michener

  Writing, People, Imagination

  "The Michener Phenomenon". Interview with Caryn James, www.nytimes.com. September 8, 1985.

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• Live an interesting life. Meet people. Read a lot and widely, learn from the great writers

  Michael Morpurgo

  People, Interesting, Interesting Life

  "Michael Morpurgo's top writing tips" by Michael Morpurgo, www.theguardian.com. December 8, 2012.

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• The first is that good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments. The second is that while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one

  Stephen King

  Hard Work, Writing, Dedication

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• How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Past, Simple

  Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun, Hermann Hesse (1971). “Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse”

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• I had no aspirations to become a landscape photographer at all. In fact it was portraiture that was my beginning, I suppose. I have always been a very keen walker, though, and I often took a camera with me on my walks. But I was, and still am, an avid reader and so when I first started I chose to photograph many of the great writers in this country to try and earn a living.

  Fay Godwin

  Country, Avid, Trying

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• Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Writing

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