Writing Quotes · Page 271

My kids are more precious to me than anything. I'm with them all day, and I write all night.

— Danielle Steel

Much malice mingled with a little wit Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ.

— John Dryden

I often felt myself to be an outsider, which is great training for all writers.

— Karen Russell

Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness.

— Georges Simenon

People don't ever seem to realize that doing what's right, writes no guarantee against misfortune.

— William McFee

“How can I demonstrate [...] that I have glimpsed somebody's future recollection?”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“A story never stands on its own, but exists in the context of the storyteller.”

— Joseph Fink

I like to co-author books to learn from those I write with.

— Dave Ulrich

The greatest thing about writing a book is that at first it's all inchoate, but the more you work on it, the…

— George Saunders

The idea I pursue is the one that keeps coming back to me. The characters I think about as I'm falling asleep…

— Ann Patchett

The whole ecosystem of celebrity has broken down for writers. If you go back to the '50s, '60s, and '70s, writers were…

— James Wolcott

I'm a writer. I never expected to be recognised on the street. I never expected to get that kind of coverage, good…

— James Frey

I wanted to write a novel where the meaning is in the story and characters and the subliminal, in the shades and…

— Frank Peretti

I was very influenced by films and books like 'Serpico,' 'The French Connection,' and 'Prince of the City.' They were some of…

— Don Winslow

If you mean do I use the guitar when I'm sitting at home writing stuff, then basically no, never. All I would…

— Fred Frith

There are lots of actors, and you need a way to stand out. Writing comedy sketches was a way of doing that.

— Sharon Horgan

I do still read comics since I started writing for DC, but nowhere near as much as I used to, and I'm…

— Karen Traviss

Orwell is almost our litmus test. Some of his satirical writing looks like reality these days. When you have someone like Cheney…

— John Pilger

Writing a novel is a very hard thing to do because it covers so long a space of time, and if you…

— Maxwell Perkins

After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I'd say it occurs in the quiet, silent…

— Henry Miller

“Motivation is more like a skill, akin to reading or writing, that can be learned and honed. Scientists have found that people…

— Charles Duhigg

“I write under not only the presumption that everything I write is deeply conditioned by everything I’ve already written, but that everything…

— Nam Le

The First Man is [Albert Camus] posthumous last work. But in fact, in a certain way, it is his first, because in…

— Catherine Camus

“I think the worst way a writer can self-betray is by not being true to his or her experience of being alive.…

— Thomas Ligotti

Today, I'm very careful not to mention very specific locations when I write or give captions.

— Galen Rowell

Nearly everything seems a letdown after a writer has finished writing something.

— John Irving

“If there's a better book than this, I haven't written it.”

— Stephen Colbert

Being a writer-director can sometimes make you incredibly blinkered.

— Anthony Minghella

“children who are blessed with happy childhoods almost never grow up to become famous writers.”

— Joan Schenkar

When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write.

— Ang Lee

In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.

— Natalie Goldberg

“A writer learns that easy to read is hard to write ...”

— CJ Heck

Besides acting, writing has been my passion for a long time.

— Antara Mali

I know that I was able to find my way out of most of my feelings by writing.

— Jane Alison

I've written some love letters in my life, I can say.

— Casey Affleck

How working for the wrong motives poisons our creativity and warps our ideas of success and failure.

— Ray Bradbury

Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.

— Sara Sheridan

“One of the pleasures of adulthood is saying nothing when you have nothing to say.”

— Mary-Claire van Leunen

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.

— Dean Acheson

The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.

— Natalie Goldberg