Written Quotes - Page 16

• Even if the script's well written there's something about the life of an improvisation that resonates better than a written word, sometimes.

  John Travolta

  Scripts, Sometimes, Wells

  "Wild Hogs - John Travolta interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sometimes an idea from six years ago will come to me out of the blue. And maybe I haven't even seen the lyrics I wrote down, but I'll just have this physical memory of having written it, and in my mind I can see the piece of paper, and the words I wrote down, and then by muscle memory, I'll remember the chords that go along with it.

  Ryan Adams

  Memories, Ideas, Blue

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The weirdest thing I've been fascinated with nowadays is the new contemporary country music, which to me sounds like very strange '70s pop, and sometimes like rock music. But some of the themes in there - maybe it's because I know how the songs were written, but it really does sound like it was written by two or three people, with the idea to appeal to the most general audience.

  Ryan Adams

  Country, Song, Rocks

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do craft songs, that this is designed. It's almost like the song was written to produce this desired effect. And it probably really works for somebody. It's maybe somebody's favorite tune, and it's really hard to come down on that, even if I feel a little embarrassed for it. Because some songs are written like a commercial, and that can be a little strange.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Crafts, Littles

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A novel is written not to be judged, but experienced.

  Anne Enright

  Novel, Judged

  4 Copy quote

• In spite the mountains of books written about art, no precise definition of art has been constructed. And the reason for this is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of beauty.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Art, Book, Mountain

  "What is Art?". Book by Leo Tolstoy, 1897.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You will have written exceptionally well if, by skilful arrangement of your words, you have made an ordinary one seem original.

  Horace

  Ordinary, Made, Wells

  'Ars Poetica' l. 47

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw more from them as wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and bones.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Men, Feelings, Soul

  Henry Ward Beecher (1855). “Star Papers: Or, Experiences of Art and Nature”, p.54, New York : Boston : J.C. Derby ; Phillips, Sampson & Company

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• If our inward griefs were seen written on our brow, how many would be pitied who are now envied! [It., Se a ciascun l'interno affanno Si leggesse in fronte scritto, Quanti mai, che invidia fanno, Ci farebbero pieta!].

  Pietro Metastasio

  Grief, Would Be, Inward

  47 Copy quote

• The real truthfulness of all works of imagination, sculpture, painting, and written fiction, is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to represent positive truth, but the idealized image of a truth

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Real, Artist, Imagination

  53 Copy quote

• No book was ever written down by any but itself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Reputation

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.317, Library of America

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Had I but written as many odes in praise of Muhammad and Ali as I have composed for King Mahmud, they would have showered a hundred blessings on me.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Kings, Blessing, Odes

  19 Copy quote

• When I read the rules of criticism, I immediately inquire after the works of the author who has written them, and by that means discover what it is he likes in a composition.

  Joseph Addison

  Mean, Criticism, Likes

  Joseph Addison (1872). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison”, p.221

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies and perplexities, in an elaborate and well-written piece of nonsense, than in the most abstruse and profound tract of school divinity.

  Joseph Addison

  School, Profound, Depth

  Joseph Addison (1853). “The Works of Joseph Addison: Including the Whole Contents of Bp. Hurd's Edition, with Letters and Other Pieces Not Found in Any Previous Collection; and Macaulay's Essay on His Life and Works”, p.624

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Simonides, a poet famous in his generation, is, I think, author of the oldest satire that is now extant, and, as some say, of the first that was ever written.

  Joseph Addison

  Thinking, Generations, Firsts

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1854). “The Spectator”, p.178

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A book or poem which has no pity in it had better not be written.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Pity

  7 Copy quote

• Writing books isn't a drastic departure from writing for the stage. I've always written in the long format, five, eight, 10-minute pieces rather than one-liners, so since writing books, the process hasn't changed much. A piece in my live routine can end up as part of one of my HBO specials, and it can also end up in one of the books.

  George Carlin

  Book, Writing, Eight

  4 Copy quote

• You contain a trillion copies of a large, textual document written in a highly accurate, digital code, each copy as voluminous as a substantial book. I'm talking, of course, of the DNA in your cells.

  Richard Dawkins

  Book, Dna, Cells

  "Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder". Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC1 Television, www.edge.org. November 12, 1996.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is an enormous redundancy in every well-written book. With a well-written book I only read the right-hand page and allow my mind to work on the left-hand page. With a poorly written book I read every word.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Book, Hands, Mind

  9 Copy quote

• In April, I asked my staff to determine if Senate rules and relevant laws would allow me to direct the trustees to sell any remaining HCA stock. In May, my staff worked with outside counsel and with the Senate ethics committee staff to draft a written communication to the trustees. After obtaining pre-approval by mid-June from the Senate ethics committee, I issued a letter directing my trustees to sell any remaining HCA stock in my family's trust.

  Bill Frist

  Communication, Law, June

  4 Copy quote

• Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written.

  William Faulkner

  Book, Pride, Honor

  "William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12". Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think it must somewhere be written that the virtues of mothers shall be visited on their children, as well as the sins of their fathers.

  Charles Dickens

  Mother, Children, Father

  7 Copy quote

• Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Progress, Robinson Crusoe

  In Hester Lynch Piozzi 'Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson' (1786) p. 281

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is said that the American vocabulary has declined by half in the past few decades. It's a tragic instance of desertification following upon monocultural commodity production, the clear-cutting of written and spoken English.

  Stephanie Mills

  Cutting, Past, Vocabulary

  Stephanie Mills (2003). “Epicurean Simplicity”, p.130, Island Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great poems of heaven and hell have been written and the great poem of earth remains to be written.

  Wallace Stevens

  Heaven, Earth, Hell

  Wallace Stevens (1997). “Collected Poetry and Prose”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source