Writing Quotes · Page 279

You don't want people to think you're just writing stories for children about a pig in a tutu.

— Karen Russell

“As neanderthals, writing on the caves, I write as a way to behave”

— J. Michael Wahlgren

I don't think about relatability (when writing), I think about the heart of the character.

— Bill Konigsberg

“What comes out of a pure-hearted, fluently written by an open-minded.”

— Toba Beta

I am drawn to characters so full of internal contradictions. Idi Amin was one. I loved writing him.

— Peter Morgan

The worst thing you write is better than the best thing you didn't write.

— Anonymous

I do not want to have the feeling of writing "for eternity," so to speak.

— Elfriede Jelinek

My first love was reading, which inspired me to write.

— Joyce Carol Oates

It's true that some of us become better writers by living long enough. But this is also how we become worse writers.…

— Don DeLillo

there is no pleasure so sweet as the pleasure of spending money but the pleasure of writing is longer. There is no…

— Gertrude Stein

“The words were good words, Ulysses felt, maybe even great words, but the list was very incomplete. He was just getting started.…

— Kate DiCamillo

Writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage.

— Jonathan Carroll

With a television series, there's a hard deadline, and so you have to write even when you're not writing well.

— Aaron Sorkin

“Writers use narratives to select from everything there is, and make contexts by putting the pieces into relation; that’s what writers do,…

— Paul Shepheard

I write to understand my circumstances, to sort out the confusion of reality, to exorcise my demons. But most of all, I…

— Isabel Allende

I often find myself writing about people taking care of each other, or trying to. And often seem to write about situations…

— Kenneth Lonergan

“[Imagination] is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more he…

— Ernest Hemingway

I never wrote anything down. I never kept a diary, never kept a journal. I did write one letter home about touring…

— Linda Ronstadt

As a writer myself, my job has very often been to also write on the job. So you get the script and…

— Sally Phillips

Somewhere In Time is the story of a love which transcends time , What Dreams May Come is the story of a…

— Richard Matheson

When everything does seem out of control, writing fiction is a way I can order that chaos and restore some sort of…

— Miriam Toews

“The best way a writer can find to keep himself going is to live off his (or her) spouse. The trouble is…

— John Gardner

There is no excuse for anyone to write fiction for public consumption unless he has been called to do so by the…

— Flannery O'Connor

Actually, I never tell for whom my songs are written. It's a kind of superstition! I started writing songs for not having…

— Enrique Iglesias

“Writing is like making love, editing is like giving your great grandfather a sponge bath.”

— Midnight Taylor

I like to write about what I've seen and experiences I've been through.

— Jorja Smith

I am writing more than I have ever done. My life has come back to me in the most extraordinary way.

— Andrew Motion

“You can write a true story that never really happened.”

— Becky Aikman

Awards are like hemorrhoids. Sooner or later every asshole gets one.

— Francois Ozon

Writers are liars my dear, surely you know that by now?

— Neil Gaiman

Anything I write that I consider stage-quality work, I won't give my TV show. I put it in my live show.

— Ron White

Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.

— Barbara Pym

Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.

— William Zinsser

Some write a narrative of wars and feats, Of heroes little known, and call the rant A history.

— William Cowper

If it is written for me to lose, I'll lose with dignity and give credit.

— Naseem Hamed

The art of the word is painting + architecture + music.

— Yevgeny Zamyatin

I started a second novel seven times and I had to throw them away.

— Amy Tan

“Most of the people readily accept the principle but resist its practice.”

— Amit Kalantri

Let me say that I absolutely loved writing 'A Common Life,' because it was a book about love.

— Jan Karon

The big thing about writing is three commands: Have fun. Don't think. Don't care.

— Richard Bach