Writer Quotes · Page 291

Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away.

— Helen Dunmore

“Time spent reading a book, even a bad one, is never wasted.”

— Stewart Stafford

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

— Iris Murdoch

If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.

— Ambrose Bierce

Reading a book should not be a passive exercise, but rather a raucous conversation.

— Studs Terkel

“The sentence is the very foundation of writing; a beautifully crafted sentence is a work of art.”

— Jeanne Voelker

“The job of the writer is to change the way the reader sees the world.”

— after Richard Ford

Bookshops are infested with ideas. Books are quivering, murmuring creatures.

— Rodrigo Rey Rosa

No blur of inexactness, no cloud of vagueness, is allowable in good writing; from the first seeing to the last putting down,…

— Eudora Welty

I think if someone is writing continuously for 10 years and has not changed their mind about something - there's something wrong…

— Andrew Sullivan

Maybe one day I'll make a record that's really mysterious and no one knows where it came from or what I wrote…

— Ellie Goulding

When you're writing something new, writing something that's your own, basically you have nothing else to do except either invent a trick,…

— Nico Muhly

I write on weekends, on vacation, and, really - on deadline and on my floor. Both terrible for the back.

— Sloane Crosley

Beyond just writing about falling in love and out of love and wanting to do certain things and going out and partying…

— Joan Jett

Writers, some of us, may tend to see things before other people do, things that are right there but aren't noticed in…

— Don DeLillo

The first challenge that every writer or creator of material faces is getting through the crowd so that the person you're trying…

— Chris Claremont

I rewrite a great deal. I'm always fiddling, always changing something. I'll write a few words - then I'll change them. I…

— Ellen Goodman

“To make matters worse, some of the books had actually become migratory. In the nineteenth century Brakebills had appointed a librarian with…

— Lev Grossman

When I go beyond a certain range it's outside of my direct horizon therefore I've got to rely on the writings and…

— R. D. Laing

That's how you write novels actually. You suddenly hit upon something and you realize this is the path you were meant to…

— Don DeLillo

“In my white room, against my white walls, on my glistening white bookshelves, book spines provide the only color. The books are…

— Nicola Yoon

I guess like any writer or screenwriter I'm alone in my own world so much of the time that I'm often trying…

— Miranda July

The way a book is read - which is to say, the qualities a reader brings to a book - can have…

— Norman Cousins

“Unto my Books-so good to turn- Far ends of tired Days- It half endears the Abstinence- And Pain-is missed-in Praise- As Flavors-cheer…

— Emily Dickinson

I never want to think or write about the topic again when I'm finished with it.

— Jim Goad

He writes so well he makes me feel like putting the quill back in the goose

— Fred Allen

I aspire to write like Robert Wyatt. I take a lot of inspiration from the way he writes.

— Weyes Blood

Literally, I see my writing as transcription - a transcription of what I see, hear, think, live.

— Hank Azaria

“Every human has a book inside them hidden, you just need to be awakened enough, to see it.”

— Santosh Kalwar

Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age.

— Jeremy Collier

Writer is a miner; he works in the gloomy places like a miner to get the precious material.

— Mehmet Murat Ildan

“Writing is like crawling across the desert- with each publication being an oasis.”

— R.S. Lehner

If you want something to happen, then you make it happen. Only you can be the author of your own story.

— Anonymous

If I don't feel like writing on a certain day, I just go to the cafe and hang around.

— Elizabeth Berg

“Reading means borrowing. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms”

— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Aphorisms

For a novelist, the gaps in a story are as intriguing as material that still exists.

— Sara Sheridan

“Flash fiction is like a kiddie's pool for writers.”

— Neil Leckman

[On reading:] It is almost the only inexhaustible pleasure.

— Annie French Hector

I have a reputation for writing all kinds of hard-core, violent things.

— Brian Azzarello

“I'm the type of girl who will buy a third copy of the same book just because it is an older edition.”

— T.J. Mihaila