Writing Quotes · Page 263

You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.

— Vikram Seth

One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up.

— Arthur Koestler

“She was writing for everybody, for nobody, for our age, for her own...”

— Virginia Woolf

Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.

— William Safire

A lot of the time, I don't actually relate to what I'm writing about in pop songs.

— Sia

You may be surprised to know that growing up, I wanted to be a writer of children's books.

— St. Lucia

I used to write jokes with friends. We'd pick a topic and then think out loud, brainstorm.

— Wendy Liebman

I write hate lyrics really well. It's not every day you can use them, really.

— Nick Cave

I think the business of music has really taken a huge hit. There's no doubt about it. But an artist is always…

— Gloria Estefan

Back in the day it was like, I got a great record from a great producer and writer and it's a hit…

— Omarion

I start with an idea that is no more than a paragraph long, and expand it slowly into an outline. But I'm…

— Barry Schwartz

But I do think it's important to remember that writers do not have a monopoly of wisdom on their books. They can…

— China Mieville

God have mercy on the sinner Who must write with no dinner, No gravy and no grub, No pewter and no pub,…

— John Crowe Ransom

Real quality means making sure that people are proud of the code they write, that they're involved and taking it personally.

— Linus Torvalds

Memory is never complete. There are always parts of it that time has amputated. Writing is a way of retrieving them, of…

— Nawal El Saadawi

I do have screenplays I've written that never saw the light of day, but I don't usually go back to them. When…

— Joss Whedon

I didn't like school. I was pretty much daydreaming all the time. I would be in the back of the class writing…

— Charlie McDermott

When I see someone who reads something of mine and draws something out of it that's very different from my perspective, I…

— Malcolm Gladwell

Most photographers go and photograph something that they see, that exists, and that somebody else has created - they document it. But…

— Mario Testino

For Dicey, writing in 1885, and for me reading him some seventy years later, the rule of law still had a very…

— Margaret Thatcher

I did my BA in English lit, and hated the restriction - I'd always read more in translation than not; coming from…

— Deborah Smith

My first job was with the Burns Detective Agency. They sent me over to the East River to guard coal barges during…

— Sam Shepard

Even the most incorrigible maverick has to be born somewhere. He may leave the group that produced him-he may be forced to-but…

— Anonymous

I think it is good for people who are incarcerated or who are bound up one way or the other-people like Lily…

— Ketch Secor

I just feel the need as a writer to try something kind of deep and fulfilling.

— Frank Peretti

“Archive material is vital to the writer of historical fiction.”

— Sara Sheridan

Academic writing is such a different way of writing.

— Tara Westover

The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one--or both. Usually both.

— Susan Sontag

A state may well not survive its writers telling its people the truth

— Anonymous

I don't view myself as a political leftie. I view myself as a storyteller who is fair to both sides.

— Tim Robbins

We all write, but the script is a blueprint. We can lose whole scenes when we're shooting.

— Shawn Wayans

Instead of slashing my wrists, I just write a bunch of really crummy songs.

— Peter Steele

“While in England write or get wrought rotten rusted.”

— Aporva Kala

“Another drink, another sentence, and the writing continues on. . . .”

— Dennis R. Miller

What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why.

— Allen Tate

“She saw poetry where other writers merely saw failure to cope with English.”

— Alice Walker

I always say to my students, 'If you can do anything other than writing and be happy, then you should.'

— Claire Messud

The writer after all is only half the book, the other half is the reader.

— Lois Lowry

“Traveling leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller”

— Ibn Battuta

“The almost-always-ghastly exclamation point has been lately compared to canned laughter.”

— George will