Writing Quotes · Page 411

Most writers tend to get worse rather than better. I'm determined to be one that gets better.

— Edmund White

I've found, in my own writing, that a little hatred, keenly directed, is a useful thing.

— Alice Walker

If he wrote it, he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.

— Ernest Hemingway

Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it I know not. God knows.

— George Frideric Handel

“You can’t give what you don’t have. To write, you must read. To write well, read well.”

— Israelmore Ayivor

“Work often gets in the way of more important things, like writing.”

— Paul West

Horror writers are specialists in the worst case scenario

— Richard Laymon

I listen to some of the lyrics I used to write and I say, "Where was my head at when I wrote…

— Ozzy Osbourne

No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and…

— Ernest Hemingway

“In working-class France, when an apprentice got hurt, or when he got tired, the experienced workers said "It is the trade entering…

— Annie Dillard

Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why…

— Erica Jong

I always remember writing a page of jokes for a comedian and handing it to him backstage at a club and he…

— Garry Marshall

I'd say it's never a challenge to present white and heteronormative privilege. The hard thing is to write any other way.

— Nell Zink

“Writing is my passion in life and I will always try to use it to help inspire all others traveling down the…

— Timothy Pina

The Catholic writer, in so far as he has the mind of the Church, will feel life from the standpoint of the…

— Flannery O'Connor

In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can't read. If they could read their stuff,…

— Will Rogers

“Sometimes I think they are writers who do not write. That "writers write" is meant to be self-evident. People like to say…

— Renata Adler

If you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be…

— Stephen King

My intention, certainly, is to create something which is aesthetic but many things are implicit in the work that I do. For…

— Graciela Iturbide

Awareness of having better things to do with their lives is the secret to immunizing our children against false values--whether presented on…

— Polly Berrien Berends

It is a little out of touch to presume that someone wants to follow your every observation and insight over the course…

— Christopher Bollen

I like horror, but I tend to like it as seasoning. I'd get very bored if I was told I had to…

— Neil Gaiman

People were always saying to Margaret, 'Well, Julia sings and Betsy writes. Now what is little Margaret going to do?' Margaret would…

— Maud Hart Lovelace

Being in unfamiliar places has no effect on my writing, except that it often means I'm caught up in the logistics of…

— Cole Swensen

If ever I was feeling down I would go and write something. It's a form of escape.

— M. Night Shyamalan

“The photographer frames the shot; writers frame their world”

— Jeannette Winterson

Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible

— Barack Obama

“I know I am a writer because until I’m writing I don’t know what I know.”

— Wayson Choy

“I write because words swim around in my head like unruly tadpoles until I do”

— Maureen Tuohy

I know I'd like to direct a film at some point, and maybe I'll write it.

— Paul Dano

“Writer’s block is like a full moon behind the rain clouds.”

— Archana Kapoor Nagpal

A writer should not so much write as embroider on paper; the work should be painstaking, laborious.

— Anton Chekhov

“And the most beautiful words ever spoken, I have not yet said to you.”

— Nazım Hikmet

A dancer dances.A writer writes. A singer sings. What do you do? Know thyself.

— Tassel Daley

When I think of folk music, I think of topical songs. And I don't write topical songs.

— Ray LaMontagne

Writing is the only way I know to demand justice from an uncaring universe.

— Dorothy Allison

On an average day, I spend 12 hours listening to music. Very little writing.

— Michel Faber

I was bored by going to Mommy and Me, and I certainly didn't want to write about it.

— Jessica St. Clair

“Binge writers are also binge readers and binge statisticians.”

— Paul J. Silvia

Get more women producers, writers, directors. Why should we expect men to do it for us? They can't

— Kathleen Turner