Writing Quotes - Page 26

• Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

  Virginia Woolf

  Freedom, Women, Reading

  Virginia Woolf (2005). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.610, Wordsworth Editions

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• It is, however, not necessary, that a man should forbear to write, till he has discovered some truth unknown before; he may be sufficiently useful, by only diversifying the surface of knowledge, and luring the mind by a new appearance to a second view of those beauties which it had passed over inattentively before.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Views, Mind

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.204, Harvard University Press

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• To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the first summons; but such happiness, the greatest genius does not always obtain; and common writers know it only to such a degree, as to credit its possibility. Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

  Samuel Johnson

  Perseverance, Expression, Ideas

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: The adventurer and idler”, p.145

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• Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired; but when once he begins to contrive how his sentiments may be received, not with most ease to his reader, but with most advantage to himself, he then transfers his consideration from words to sounds, from sentences to periods, and, as he grows more elegant, becomes less intelligible.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Ease, May

  Samuel Johnson (1800). “The Idler: With Additional Essays”, p.122

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• You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you.

  Arthur Plotnik

  Heart, Mind, Burning

  Arthur Plotnik (1984). “The elements of editing: a modern guide for editors and journalists”, Scribner Paper Fiction

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• If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Hurt, Art, Parent

  Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Timequake”, p.49, Penguin

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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

  Athlete, Character, Exercise

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  Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

  Franz Kafka

  Inspirational, Fashion, Truth

  Franz Kafka (1995). “The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories”, Random House LLC

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• My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that 'achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.

  Helen Hayes

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.

  W. H. Auden

  Life, Believe, Numbers

  Dyer's Hand (1963) "Writing"

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• Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.

  William Wordsworth

  Artist, Taste, Proportion

  Letter to Lady Beaumont, 21 May 1807

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• A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public eye with his pants down.

  Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Book, Eye, Pants

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• I'm an aspiring writer. I hate that phrase. You're either a writer or you're not.

  Jack Black

  Hate, Phrases, Aspiring Writers

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• You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

  Ray Bradbury

  Inspirational, Reality, Drunk

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• There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.

  Josh Billings

  Funny, Witty, Educational

  Josh Billings (1972). “Uncle Sam's Uncle Josh: Or, Josh Billings on Practically Everything, Distilled from Josh's Rum and Tansy New England Wit by Donald Day”

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• The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what is written.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Literature, Firsts, Comeback

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• Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people.

  Roald Dahl

  Two, People, Different

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• Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent.

  E. M. Forster

  Creativity, Creative, Causes

  Two Cheers for Democracy (1951) "Gide and George"

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• What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Blessed, Criticism, Chips

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.25, Reprint Services Corporation

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• Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

  Truman Capote

  Music, Law, Knowing

  1974 Interview in Paris Review, Summer.

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• To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent. A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.

  Willa Cather

  Lying, Character, Artist

  Willa Cather (1988). “Not Under Forty”, p.81, U of Nebraska Press

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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, Beer

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

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• All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

  Khalil Gibran

  Fall, Mind, Our Words

  Khalil Gibran “The New Frontier and Sand and Foam”, Library of Alexandria

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• An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Witty, Learning

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1001, Wordsworth Editions

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• The process of writing a book is infinitely more important than the book that is completed as a result of the writing, let alone the success or failure that book may have after it is written . . . the book is merely a symbol of the writing. In writing the book, I am living. I am growing. I am tapping myself. I am changing. The process is the product.

  Theodore Isaac Rubin

  Book, Important, Growing

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