Writing Quotes · Page 1,582

Anybody can lead a frivolous life. A frivolous writer, however, must have taste and intelligence.

— Mason Cooley

My background is on the stage, so when I'd write movies, they'd be a lot like plays.

— Alan Alda

“When you are a writer, "Just be yourself" takes on a whole different, confusing meaning.”

— Jennivie Wirries

I cannot life for life itself: but for the words which stay the flux. My life, I feel, will not be lived…

— Sylvia Plath

If the character is really well-rounded, and it's a really strong character, and if the writing is just fantastic, that's the thing…

— Amanda Abbington

Earlier, actors had a lot of power in their hands. And now, it has gone in the hands of the directors and…

— Bhumi Pednekar

Writing imaginative tales for the young is like sending coals to Newcastle. For coals.

— Neil Gaiman

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I…

— Joan Didion

I think people are confusing the right to write with the right to be published.

— John Connolly

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.

— Sinclair Lewis

The best models of English writing are Shakespeare and the Old Testament.

— Aleister Crowley

“No one gives a shit if you write a book or not.”

— Jeffrey Ford

For some reason writing and drawing are very separate processes for me.

— Alison Bechdel

Each decision - to kill, to sign a petition, to write a letter, to make a speech, to attack, to lie, to…

— Nicholson Baker

I could write stories just as rotten.

— Edgar Rice Burroughs

When I feel difficulty coming on, I switch to another book I'm writing. When I get back to the problem, my unconscious…

— Isaac Asimov

I always value my large kitchen because it was better to do everything there, you wash up, you do everything, rather than…

— Buchi Emecheta

“She logged in and read a few of her old posts, smiling at the issues she had raged about and shaking her…

— Shweta Ganesh Kumar

I think parts of my soul have been saved by my writing, not in the sense of escaping death, but escaping the…

— Pattiann Rogers

Anyone can express himself or herself, but what writers and poets want to do in their work, more than simply express themselves,…

— Raymond Carver

I would probably do anything with David Mamet. He's so great. I just love his writing.

— Val Kilmer

“My own luck was being born white and middle-class into a house full of books, with a father who encouraged me to…

— Adrienne Rich

From Maya Angelou I began to believe that I, too, someday, could be a writer, and I also learned how tortuous it…

— Dirk Benedict

You can't write your life story and leave out one of the most important things that happened to you in your life.…

— Kris Jenner

Let's face it, the great comedians now that are handicapped in the looks department are tremendous writers.

— Jack Black

When you have a writing partner and you're writing a comedy, your goal is to make each other laugh.

— Lauren Miller

Lazy reviewers look up other people's reviews and they write the same thing, so you get people writing crap based on crap.

— Joni Mitchell

“Today, my love, I am too tired to write for you. You will find in your heart a letter, several pages, full…

— Christian Bobin

It takes me awhile to find something that I'm passionate about. I'm reading a lot and thinking a lot, and torturing myself…

— Paul Haggis

A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch,

— Michael Ondaatje

There are enough women to do the childbearing and the childrearing. I know of none who can write my books.

— Henry Handel Richardson

“If I were ever asked by some young, sensitive writer just starting out, what key lesson I've learned in life (which I'll…

— Mark Leyner

“The words come at my call but who calls whom?”

— Jeanette Winterson

Chicago is many things to many people, and to me, it is a place where you can write.

— Susan Glaspell

When you're writing for theater or TV, it's open-ended in scope. You can write 10 separate pieces that are really effective but…

— John Parish

If you are any kind of writer at all, you are in all of your writings.

— David M. Evans

The hardest part about writing any song is, what do you write? And how do I rewrite things? You start to run…

— Brad Paisley

But usually I'll wake up and start writing about nine o'clock. I'll probably write for about three hours, and I'll do that…

— Stanley Tucci

Being a writer is a rather hazardous occupation and there is a horribly high rate of writers who barely have the money…

— Herbert Gold

“Take that rage, put it on a page, take the page to the stage, blow the roof off the place.”

— The Script