Writing Quotes · Page 379

Often with good sentiments we produce bad literature.

— Andre Gide

I got a book deal without even turning in one shred of a writing sample.

— Janice Dickinson

You have to be quite brave to write about something that you honestly feel and think.

— Sampha

You have to expect the raps when you have achieved popularity as a writer

— Irwin Shaw

“I couldn't hack it in Hollywood, my writing's wasn't bad enough.”

— Russ Lippitt

The modern economics of the theater is such that we write plays with fewer and fewer characters.

— John Patrick Shanley

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those who move easiest have learned to dance.

— Alexander Pope

Ek gret effect men write in place lite; Th'entente is al, and nat the lettres space.

— Geoffrey Chaucer

“Just because I'm a writer doesn't mean that my personal experiences are embellished. Every life has a story.”

— Terry a O'Neal

Some of our writers are starting to incorporate elements of social media, etc. in the work itself, which is all for the…

— George Saunders

[Jonathan Edwards] he has to be engaged with on this issue if you're writing about Calvinism as I am in this book.

— Oliver D. Crisp

The writing about what you know thing was a huge one. Not worrying so much about what people think. Just writing for…

— Luke Temple

There's very little of the intentional about the business of writing poetry, as least as far as I can see.

— Paul Muldoon

[On writing:] What a difficult kind of work to choose! But of course one did not choose it. There was no choice.

— Ivy Compton-Burnett

I was trained to look at colour, edges, to see negative space. I honestly think my greatest influence as a writer is…

— Rebecca Miller

I can always track my career by the children - I started writing right after the 14-year-old was born, and sold my…

— Heather Graham Pozzessere

“The only distinguishing characteristic of a literature professor at the millennium was that he or she wrote about other people's writing. Apart…

— James Hynes

I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are,…

— George R. R. Martin

I don't buy into the idea that an Irish writer should write about Ireland, or a gay writer should write about being…

— John Boyne

The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for…

— John Steinbeck

Most fledgling and mid-list writers are lucky to be offered a 4-figure sum and are not only expected to deliver copy that…

— Sara Sheridan

Words are such powerful things. We can rip somebody apart with them, we can write words down that can forever hurt another…

— Joan Bauer

I refuse to do anything easy. I'm writing for the smartest person out there. I'm not equating myself with the smartest person…

— Larry Gelbart

The visual world has blown up, the world of writing has blown up; there's so much text online. Anyone and everyone can…

— Laurie Simmons

In my mind, I was always a comedian who was going to branch into writing.

— Patton Oswalt

“I heart my job. I get to make things up for a living.”

— Michelle M. Pillow

If you don’t write the book you have to write, everything breaks.

— A.M. Homes

Literally everything I do is either write songs and play music, or I'm immersed in my domestic life.

— Lou Barlow

“Writer's block is caused by forcing your will on the Divine.”

— Chriscinthia Blount

Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.

— Donald Barthelme

When you write a script, you always think about what your heart is asking.

— Olivier Megaton

There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight.

— Warren Buffett

Barton Fink got written very quickly, in about three weeks. I don't know what that means.

— Joel Coen

I became a full-time writer in 1993 and have been very happy, insofar as anybody is, since.

— Anne Enright

The writer of history is perhaps closer to the artist than the scholar.

— Theodor Mommsen

As a writer, I'm mostly at my desk, staring out my window. No one sees me.

— Christine Leunens

“A true writer does not seek wealth or fame does seek to find himself in each of his readers souls.”

— Julia Joanne Black

I write slowly. I can't move on until I've got a paragraph right.

— Nick Hornby

Musicians have been political literally since people were writing songs.

— Maggie Rogers

“I'm not gonna lie...sometimes this whole writing thing is a lonely business.”

— Christy Hall