Writers And Writing Quotes - Page 5

• No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

  E. B. White

  Attitude, Writing, Reader

  William Strunk Jr., E.B. White (1962). “the Elements of Style”

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• Resist the temptation to try to use dazzling style to conceal weakness of substance.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Writing, Temptation, Style

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• Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write.

  J. B. Priestley

  Writing, Would Be, Ifs

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• Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

  Stephen King

  Inspirational, Writing, Procrastination

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• Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.

  Jane Yolen

  Writing, Athlete, Character

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• Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

  T. S. Eliot

  Witty, Humorous, Writing

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• Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Writing

  "Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend".

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• There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

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• My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

  Anton Chekhov

  Lying, Writing, Stories

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• Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Writing, Reading Literature

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

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• I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.

  Peter De Vries

  Work, Writing, Written Word

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• Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Writing, Editors, Rejection

  Kurt Vonnegut (1982). “Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage”, Dell Books

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• The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.

  Stephen King

  Kings, Writing, Interesting

  Stephen King (2000). “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”, p.277, Simon and Schuster

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• A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Morning, Writing, Color

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.86, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Writing is the hardest work in the world not involving heavy lifting.

  Pete Hamill

  Writing, World, Heavy

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• Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper.

  John Steinbeck

  Writing, Paper, Whole

  John Steinbeck (1989). “Steinbeck: A Life in Letters”, p.611, Penguin

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• There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Real Talk, Story Writers

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• I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Funny Life, Writing, Sound

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• When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.

  Enrique Jardiel Poncela

  Writing, Effort, Gone

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• Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.

  Richard Miller

  Wrestling, Writing, Way

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• It's better to write about things you feel than about things you know about.

  L.P. Hartley

  Writing, Feels, Knows

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• Success comes to a writer as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Congratulations, Writing, Winning

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• There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.

  H. L. Mencken

  Writing, Dull, Subjects

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• Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down.

  John Steinbeck

  Great Writing, Whole, Writing By Writers

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• The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

  Linus Pauling

  Motivational, Inspiring, Success

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