Writing Words Quotes - Page 2

• 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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• To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Achievement, Squandering

  Mark Twain (1990). “Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 2: 1867-1868”, p.182, Univ of California Press

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• The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

  Philip Roth

  Work, Writing, Sisterhood

  1979 In the NewYorkTimes Book Review,15 Jul.

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• No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

  Henry Adams

  Truth, Mean, Men

  The Education of Henry Adams ch. 31 (1907)

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• I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

  Jack London

  Sleep, Atoms, London

  Quoted in Bulletin (San Francisco), 2 Dec. 1916.

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• I try to leave out the parts readers skip.

  Elmore Leonard

  Writing, Trying, Reader

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Want, Satisfaction

  Mark Twain, Albert Bigelow Paine (1971). “Mark Twain's notebook”, Scholarly Pr

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

  T. S. Eliot

  Witty, Humorous, Writing

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• Easy reading is damn hard writing.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Powerful, Reading, Writing

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• A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.

  Burt Bacharach

  Funny, Writing, Sarcasm

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Here’s what I learned: First thing in the morning, before I have drowned myself in coffee, while I still have that sleepy brain I used to believe was useless — that is the best brain for creative writing. Words come pouring out easily while my head still feels as if it is full of ground fog, wrapped in flannel and gauze, and surrounded by a hive of humming, velvety sleep bees.

  Merrill Markoe

  Morning, Coffee, Believe

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• You can't be blocked if you just keep on writing words. Any words. People who get 'blocked' make the mistake of thinking they have to write good words.

  Martha Grimes

  Mistake, Writing, Thinking

  Martha Grimes (2004). “Foul Matter”, p.51, Penguin

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• I get drunk writing words. I don't drink or do drugs, but I get so carried away with writing that I get inebriated from it.

  John Shirley

  Writing, Drunk, Drug

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• For me, the intent in a song is to sing it. I compose songs, meaning I'm writing words to be set to music; I'm intending it to not be recited. I'm a singer-songwriter, and I'm a poet, and there really isn't a contradiction, at least for me.

  Cornelius Eady

  Song, Writing, Singers

  "Breaking into Song: An Interview with Cornelius Eady". Interview with Alexis Orgera, www.anmly.org.

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• The idea of political content is irrelevant. Content is irrelevant. I always tell my students, "Never forget you're writing words! You know, word one, word two, word three, word four. The words have to be organized. Nothing else does."

  Dave Hickey

  Writing, Ideas, Two

  Interview with Sheila Heti, believermag.com. November 1, 2007.

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• The translator ... Peculiar outcast, ghost in the world of literature, recreating in another form something already created, creating and not creating, writing words that are his own and not his own, writing a work not original to him, composing with utmost pains and without recognition of his pains or the fact that the composition really is his own.

  Lydia Davis

  Pain, Writing, Creating

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• In good writing, words become one with things.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Writing, Good Writing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1992). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.376, University of Missouri Press

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• Once, lovers on faraway shores sat by candlelight and dipped ink to parchment, writing words that could not be erased. They took an evening to compose their thoughts, maybe the next evening as well.

  Mitch Albom

  Writing, Next, Evening

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• It took me to about maybe 16, 17 or 18 or something to realise I was absolutely useless at everything else except for playing guitar and writing words

  Noel Gallagher

  Writing, Guitar, Useless

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