Writing Quotes · Page 497

I learned to write from authors. I didn't know any, but I read their books.

— Cynthia Rylant

In order to be a writer, first you must become an alive dead spirit.

— William C. Brown

Young men should prove theorems, old men should write books.

— G. H. Hardy

Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.

— Norman MacCaig

If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug.

— Henrik Ibsen

Kids think you just sit down and start writing. I always tell them you never do that.

— R. L. Stine

How do you write women so well? I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.

— John Updike

The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life.

— Rita Mae Brown

Keep in mind, you can use Auto-Tune and you can know how to work it perfectly, but you still have to know…

— T-Pain

I might enjoy writing some ghost stories set in Japan because their whole idea about the spirit world is so interesting.

— William T. Vollmann

Strangely, Dante's Divine Comedy did not produce a prose of that creative height or it did so after centuries.

— Eugenio Montale

When we're falling in love or out of it, that's when we most need a song that says how we feel. Yeah,…

— Taylor Swift

“I used to be a bumper sticker kind of writer. Now I’m more developed, and my writing often takes up whole bumpers.…

— Jarod Kintz

I remind myself that no one day of writing matters all that much. A story is built somewhat like a stalactite -…

— Joe Hill

But I think you have to accept - as I have accepted - that the demands of TV are different than the…

— Ian McElhinney

I have not seen anyone assume that all the citizens of New York are guilty of murder, violence, robbery, perjury, or writing…

— Richard Stallman

It was a matter of not seeing the woods for the trees. Glorious songs have been in Ireland forever, but a lot…

— Phil Coulter

I'd always read a lot about rock 'n' roll growing up, but the first real thing I set out to do was…

— Anthony DeCurtis

It's not healthy to obsess over every data point, every review or reader comment. I think the first few times you see…

— Alastair Reynolds

I don't know what Douglas Coupland thinks about his writing. I've read maybe one page of one of his books and didn't…

— Tao Lin

Writing about real stuff that really concerned me brought out my craft. If you're writing a story about, 'Is Lois Lane gonna…

— Dennis O'Neil

When I was a kid, we had this great advantage of there being no YA books. You read kid books and then…

— Mark Kurlansky

One of the biggest, and possibly the biggest, obstacle to becoming a writer... is learning to live with the fact that the…

— Robin McKinley

It's a tough time for screenwriters right now, because fewer movies are getting made. I'm enjoying television so much. It offers opportunities…

— Callie Khouri

Read as much as you possibly can. Nothing will help you as much as reading.

— J. K. Rowling

The shame of being a man - is there any better reason to write?

— Gilles Deleuze

Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works.

— John Updike

A piece of writing is like a piece of magic. You create something out of nothing.

— Susanna Clarke

A real love letter is absolutely ridiculous to everyone except the writer and the recipient.

— Myrtle Reed

I have no agenda except to be funny. Neither I or the writers profess to offer any worldly wisdom.

— Julia Louis-Dreyfus

I like to be read. That's most of what any writer could want.

— Mark Leibovich

My mother says I was writing before I was crawling. I wrote in the dirt with a twig.

— Alice Walker

I have written many works to accompany Old Church Slavonic texts.

— Krzysztof Penderecki

I love writing Christmas stories, especially of the historical variety.

— Linda Lael Miller

writing about a writer's block is better than not writing at all

— Charles Bukowski

As a writer, the worst thing you can do is work in an environment of fear of rejection.

— Carol Leifer

I love being a writer in a medium where they have to ask you, 'Can I change this line?'

— Bruce Joel Rubin

When I write I'm never really thinking about themes or the universal.

— Lena Dunham

People who are busy and happy don't write diaries; they are too busy living.

— Robert A. Heinlein

To those people doubting Serena Williams, writing her off - do not do that to a champion.

— Martina Navratilova