--- title: "11 Understand Write Quotes by 10 authors" description: "Browse 11 Understand Write quotes by 10 authors. Discover the best Understand Write sayings and thoughts." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c3/leo-tolstoy-55_i-can_i-can-t-understand-how-anyone-can-write_3019697.png" --- > [I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/leo-tolstoy/i-can-t-understand-how-anyone-can-write-without-rewriting-everything/) [Leo Tolstoy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/leo-tolstoy/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c3/leo-tolstoy-55_i-can_i-can-t-understand-how-anyone-can-write_3019697.png) > [Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/alan-perlis/once-you-understand-how-to-write-a-program-get-someone-else-to-write/) [Alan Perlis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/alan-perlis/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e0f/alan-perlis-11812_learning_once-you-understand-how-to-write-a-progr_1905484.png) > [“I don't write so that people will understand me, I write because I know they don't. And, I can't help feeling like…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thurman-p-banks-jr/i-don-t-write-so-that-people-will-understand-me-i-write-because-i/) [Thurman P. Banks Jr](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thurman-p-banks-jr/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/074/thurman-p-banks-jr-33182_understanding_i-don-t-write-so-that-people-will-unders_1901645.jpg) > [“Is it crazy to say that I sometimes don't understand what I write but I write it anyway, because maybe someone, somewhere,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/nema-al-araby/is-it-crazy-to-say-that-i-sometimes-don-t-understand-what-i-write-but/) [Nema Al-Araby](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/nema-al-araby/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e96/nema-al-araby-23155_learning_is-it-crazy-to-say-that-i-sometimes-don_195274.jpg) > [The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ernest-hemingway/the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your-work-done-and-see-and-hear/) [Ernest Hemingway](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ernest-hemingway/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fd0/ernest-hemingway-83_done_the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your_1983968.jpg) > [It's one of the things writing students don't understand. They write a first draft and are quite disappointed, or often should be…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/elizabeth-hardwick/it-s-one-of-the-things-writing-students-don-t-understand-they-write-a/) [Elizabeth Hardwick](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/elizabeth-hardwick/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/eac/elizabeth-hardwick-10519_disappointed_it-s-one-of-the-things-writing-students_1771100.jpg) > [It is necessary a writing critic should understand how to write. And though every writer is not bound to show himself in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anthony-ashley-cooper-7th-earl-of-shaftesbury/it-is-necessary-a-writing-critic-should-understand-how-to-write-and/) [Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anthony-ashley-cooper-7th-earl-of-shaftesbury/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fe8/anthony-ashley-cooper-7th-earl_bounds_it-is-necessary-a-writing-critic-should_58526.png) > [“It was a simple account of an incident from his childhood. At the time I recall that I wondered why he had…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robin-hobb/it-was-a-simple-account-of-an-incident-from-his-childhood-at-the-time/) [Robin Hobb](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robin-hobb/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/17a/robin-hobb-489_children_it-was-a-simple-account-of-an-incident-f_1660915.jpg) > [“The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ernest-hemingway/the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your-work-done-and-see-and-hear-2/) [Ernest Hemingway](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ernest-hemingway/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ce/ernest-hemingway-83_save-the-world_the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your_2684076.jpg) > [We write to understand our deepest secrets to ourselves, to understand. We write in an outpouring of love. We write in secret,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sophy-burnham/we-write-to-understand-our-deepest-secrets-to-ourselves-to-understand/) [Sophy Burnham](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sophy-burnham/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/16c/sophy-burnham-23134_choices_we-write-to-understand-our-deepest-secre_621578.jpg) > [“I don’t know when I started to realize that my country’s past was incomprehensible and obscure to me, a real shadowy terrain,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/juan-gabriel-v-squez/i-don-t-know-when-i-started-to-realize-that-my-country-s-past-was/) [Juan Gabriel Vásquez](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/juan-gabriel-v-squez/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d9d/juan-gabriel-v-squez-22268_doubting_i-don-t-know-when-i-started-to-realize-t_1714286.jpg) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/understand-write/#itemlist", "name": "Understand Write Quotes", "numberOfItems": 11, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Leo Tolstoy" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/leo-tolstoy/i-can-t-understand-how-anyone-can-write-without-rewriting-everything/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c3/leo-tolstoy-55_i-can_i-can-t-understand-how-anyone-can-write_3019697.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c3/leo-tolstoy-55_i-can_i-can-t-understand-how-anyone-can-write_3019697.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c3/leo-tolstoy-55_i-can_i-can-t-understand-how-anyone-can-write_3019697.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.” — Leo Tolstoy", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Alan Perlis" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/alan-perlis/once-you-understand-how-to-write-a-program-get-someone-else-to-write/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e0f/alan-perlis-11812_learning_once-you-understand-how-to-write-a-progr_1905484.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e0f/alan-perlis-11812_learning_once-you-understand-how-to-write-a-progr_1905484.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e0f/alan-perlis-11812_learning_once-you-understand-how-to-write-a-progr_1905484.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.” — Alan Perlis", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“I don't write so that people will understand me, I write because I know they don't. And, I can't help feeling like I should at least give them the illusion that they do.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Thurman P. Banks Jr" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thurman-p-banks-jr/i-don-t-write-so-that-people-will-understand-me-i-write-because-i/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/074/thurman-p-banks-jr-33182_understanding_i-don-t-write-so-that-people-will-unders_1901645.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/074/thurman-p-banks-jr-33182_understanding_i-don-t-write-so-that-people-will-unders_1901645.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/074/thurman-p-banks-jr-33182_understanding_i-don-t-write-so-that-people-will-unders_1901645.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I don't write so that people will understand me, I write because I know they don't. And, I can't help…” — Thurman P. Banks Jr", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Is it crazy to say that I sometimes don't understand what I write but I write it anyway, because maybe someone, somewhere, somehow, would feel what I didn't?”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Nema Al-Araby" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/nema-al-araby/is-it-crazy-to-say-that-i-sometimes-don-t-understand-what-i-write-but/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e96/nema-al-araby-23155_learning_is-it-crazy-to-say-that-i-sometimes-don_195274.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e96/nema-al-araby-23155_learning_is-it-crazy-to-say-that-i-sometimes-don_195274.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e96/nema-al-araby-23155_learning_is-it-crazy-to-say-that-i-sometimes-don_195274.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Is it crazy to say that I sometimes don't understand what I write but I write it anyway, because maybe…” — Nema Al-Araby", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 5, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when there is something that you know; and not before, and not too damned much after.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Ernest Hemingway" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ernest-hemingway/the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your-work-done-and-see-and-hear/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fd0/ernest-hemingway-83_done_the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your_1983968.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fd0/ernest-hemingway-83_done_the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your_1983968.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fd0/ernest-hemingway-83_done_the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your_1983968.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when…” — Ernest Hemingway", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 6, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "It's one of the things writing students don't understand. They write a first draft and are quite disappointed, or often should be disappointed. They don't understand that they have merely begun, and that they may be merely beginning even in the second or third draft.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Elizabeth Hardwick" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/elizabeth-hardwick/it-s-one-of-the-things-writing-students-don-t-understand-they-write-a/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/eac/elizabeth-hardwick-10519_disappointed_it-s-one-of-the-things-writing-students_1771100.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/eac/elizabeth-hardwick-10519_disappointed_it-s-one-of-the-things-writing-students_1771100.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/eac/elizabeth-hardwick-10519_disappointed_it-s-one-of-the-things-writing-students_1771100.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“It's one of the things writing students don't understand. They write a first draft and are quite…” — Elizabeth Hardwick", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 7, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "It is necessary a writing critic should understand how to write. And though every writer is not bound to show himself in the capacity of critic, every writing critic is bound to show himself capable of being a writer; for if he be apparently impotent in this latter kind, he is to be denied all title or character in the other.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anthony-ashley-cooper-7th-earl-of-shaftesbury/it-is-necessary-a-writing-critic-should-understand-how-to-write-and/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fe8/anthony-ashley-cooper-7th-earl_bounds_it-is-necessary-a-writing-critic-should_58526.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fe8/anthony-ashley-cooper-7th-earl_bounds_it-is-necessary-a-writing-critic-should_58526.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fe8/anthony-ashley-cooper-7th-earl_bounds_it-is-necessary-a-writing-critic-should_58526.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“It is necessary a writing critic should understand how to write. And though every writer is not bound to…” — Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 8, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“It was a simple account of an incident from his childhood. At the time I recall that I wondered why he had written it down. He obviously remembered it clearly; why bother to record it on paper? Only later was I to learn from my own obsessive journaling of my dreams that sometimes the best way to understand something is to write it down.\" p. 355”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Robin Hobb" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robin-hobb/it-was-a-simple-account-of-an-incident-from-his-childhood-at-the-time/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/17a/robin-hobb-489_children_it-was-a-simple-account-of-an-incident-f_1660915.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/17a/robin-hobb-489_children_it-was-a-simple-account-of-an-incident-f_1660915.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/17a/robin-hobb-489_children_it-was-a-simple-account-of-an-incident-f_1660915.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“It was a simple account of an incident from his childhood. At the time I recall that I wondered why he had…” — Robin Hobb", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 9, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when there is something that you know; and not before; and not too damned much after. Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it's made truly. The thing to do is work and learn to make it.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Ernest Hemingway" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ernest-hemingway/the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your-work-done-and-see-and-hear-2/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ce/ernest-hemingway-83_save-the-world_the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your_2684076.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ce/ernest-hemingway-83_save-the-world_the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your_2684076.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ce/ernest-hemingway-83_save-the-world_the-great-thing-is-to-last-and-get-your_2684076.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when…” — Ernest Hemingway", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 10, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "We write to understand our deepest secrets to ourselves, to understand. We write in an outpouring of love. We write in secret, either for publication or for a journal no one will see, or we write poems to be privately printed for the eyes of friends alone - this is not our choice. The urge is to create. The outcome belongs to God.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sophy Burnham" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sophy-burnham/we-write-to-understand-our-deepest-secrets-to-ourselves-to-understand/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/16c/sophy-burnham-23134_choices_we-write-to-understand-our-deepest-secre_621578.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/16c/sophy-burnham-23134_choices_we-write-to-understand-our-deepest-secre_621578.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/16c/sophy-burnham-23134_choices_we-write-to-understand-our-deepest-secre_621578.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“We write to understand our deepest secrets to ourselves, to understand. We write in an outpouring of love…” — Sophy Burnham", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 11, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“I don’t know when I started to realize that my country’s past was incomprehensible and obscure to me, a real shadowy terrain, nor can I remember the precise moment when all that i’d believed so trustworthy and predictable—the place I’d grown up, whose language I speak and customs I know, the place whose past I was taught in school and in university, whose present I have become accustomed to interpreting and pretending I understand—began to turn into a place of shadows out of whcih jumped horrible creatures as soon as we dropped our guard. With time I have come to think that this is the true reason why writers write aboutn the places of childhood and adolescence and even their early touth: you don’t write about what you know and understand, and much less do you write because you know and understand, but because you understand that all your knowledge and comprehension is false, a mirage and an illusion, so your books are not, could not be, more than elaborate displays of disorientation: extensive and multifarious declarations of preplexity. All that I thought was so clear, you then think, now turns out to be full of duplicities and hidden intentions, like a friend who betrays us. To that revelation, which is always annoying and often frankly painful, the writer responds in the only way one knows how: with a book. And that’s how you try to mitigate your disconcertion, reduce the space between what you don’t know and what can be known, and most of all resolve your profound disagreement with that unpredictable reality. “Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric,” wrote Yeats. “Out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.” And what happens when both quarrels arise at the same time, when fighting with the world is a reflection or a transfiguration of the subterranean but constant confrontation you have with yourself? Then you write a book like the one I’m writing now, and blindly trust that the book will mean something to somebody else.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Juan Gabriel Vásquez" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/juan-gabriel-v-squez/i-don-t-know-when-i-started-to-realize-that-my-country-s-past-was/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d9d/juan-gabriel-v-squez-22268_doubting_i-don-t-know-when-i-started-to-realize-t_1714286.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d9d/juan-gabriel-v-squez-22268_doubting_i-don-t-know-when-i-started-to-realize-t_1714286.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d9d/juan-gabriel-v-squez-22268_doubting_i-don-t-know-when-i-started-to-realize-t_1714286.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I don’t know when I started to realize that my country’s past was incomprehensible and obscure to me, a real…” — Juan Gabriel Vásquez", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/understand-write/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/understand-write/", "name": "Understand Write Quotes", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/understand-write/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8c3/leo-tolstoy-55_i-can_i-can-t-understand-how-anyone-can-write_3019697.png" }, "description": "Browse 11 Understand Write quotes by 10 authors. 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