Writing Quotes - Page 34

• Here's the secret to finishing that first book. Don't rewrite as you go.

  Laurell K. Hamilton

  Book, Secret, Finishing

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• I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Education, Powerful, Thinking

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1974). “Locked rooms and open doors”, Not Avail

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• I think the first duty of all art, including fiction of any kind, is to entertain. That is to say, to hold interest. No matter how worthy the message of something, if it's dull, you're just not communicating.

  Poul Anderson

  Art, Thinking, Fiction

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• The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.

  Pablo Neruda

  Inspirational, Beauty, Book

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• The ideal view for daily writing, hour for hour, is the blank brick wall of a cold-storage warehouse. Failing this, a stretch of sky will do, cloudless if possible.

  Edna Ferber

  Wall, Views, Sky

  Edna Ferber (2014). “A Kind of Magic: An Autobiography”, p.78, Vintage

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• If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Book, Ifs, Good Writers

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.67, Shambhala Publications

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• If you don't know it, don't write it.

  Darrell Schweitzer

  Ifs, Knows

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• Writing is not a genteel profession. It's quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.

  Rosemary Mahoney

  Dirty, Nasty, Tough

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• It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them.

  Isabel Colegate

  Women, Ideas, Habit

  Isabel Colegate (2009). “The Shooting Party”, p.2, Counterpoint

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• The historian records, but the novelist creates.

  E. M. Forster

  Novelists, Records, Historian

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• Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Silence, Abuse, Dangerous

  Samuel Johnson (1840). “The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...”, p.51

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• Editing might be a bloody trade. But knives aren't the exclusive property of butchers. Surgeons use them too.

  Blake Morrison

  Editing, Knives, Use

  "Black day for the blue pencil". www.theguardian.com. August 6, 2005.

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• It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Real, Giving, Impossible

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• Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility.

  Katherine Paterson

  Real, Order, Giving

  Katherine Paterson (2001). “The Invisible Child: On Reading and Writing Books for Children”, Dutton Juvenile

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• Genius gives birth, talent delivers.

  Jack Kerouac

  Giving, Genius, Talent

  Jack Kerouac (1995). “The Portable Jack Kerouac”, Viking Adult

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• There is no rule on how to write.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Ernest Hemingway (2008). “The Good Life According to Hemingway”, Ecco

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• Writing a poem is discovering.

  Robert Frost

  Discovering

  1955 In the NewYork Times, 7 Nov.

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• It's very hard to write humor.

  Mark Strand

  Humor, Hard

  "In the Presence of America: A Conversation with Mark Strand". Interview with Katharine Coles, weberstudies.weber.edu. 1992.

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• Writing a book is an adventure.

  Winston Churchill

  Book, Adventure, Writing A Book

  Winston Churchill (1965). “Winston Churchill, His Wit and Wisdom: Selections from His Works and Speeches”

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• Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

  John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby

  Chiefs, Authorship, Masterpiece

  "Essay on Poetry" by John Sheffield,

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• If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

  Stephen King

  Two, Want, Way

  Stephen King (2000). “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”, p.171, Simon and Schuster

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• My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them, and how I felt when I did. Short stories are like guideposts to my heart.

  Haruki Murakami

  Heart, Shadow, Stories

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”, p.9, Random House

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• It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one.

  Honore de Balzac

  Dream, Book, Easy

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• you don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.

  Les Brown

  Education, Motivation, Gymnastics

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• Writing is a delicious agony.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Agony, Delicious

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