Writing Quotes · Page 314

A writer's duty is to register what it is like for him or her to be in the world.

— Zadie Smith

We write our names in the sand: and then the waves roll in and wash them away.

— Anonymous

I know that no reader ever asks a question. A writer must force his favors upon his readers.

— Jan Neruda

...I write to keep in contact with our ancestors and to spread truth to people.

— Sonia Sanchez

“Metaphor is a slippery eel, if it wasn't for its shock I'd stick to the easy catch of prose.”

— David Joseph Cribbin

One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.

— Quintilian

I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.

— Stephen Sondheim

“The easiest part of the writing process is whichever part I’m not currently doing.”

— Scott Tracey

Basically, when I'm writing something, I think about what is the subject of the piece. The subject of the piece is our…

— M. Night Shyamalan

Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

— Martin Fowler

I started writing about New York as soon as I arrived. I was 19. I used to write short stories and send…

— Candace Bushnell

It's a lot of people who can perform, but they can't write. And it's a lot of people that can write that…

— Scarface

You can't reduce an actual human being; you're just writing! You're not doing anything to another person.

— Vivian Gornick

I used to object to being called an Indian writer, and would always say I was a writer who happened to be…

— James Welch

The nice thing about writing at home is that it's almost as though I'm doing it already. I get out of bed…

— Patrick deWitt

“All good storytellers are of necessity good writers - even if they may be poorly edited ones. Unfortunately, not all good writers…

— Nupur Tustin

A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake…

— Haruki Murakami

I was writing fiction in my 20s but in a pretty undisciplined way - late at night, maybe, after I'd peeled myself…

— Kevin Barry

I've always written about people who have very abstracted in a certain way. I write about scientists and artists and musicians. I…

— Andrea Barrett

Not too many songwriters, when they write songs go for broke. When someone does who's really good, it's astonishing. There's a reason…

— Lou Reed

“Alas, many of these long-distance writers are not fascinating thinkers, and it’s a dubious premise that someone who would be dull to…

— Rebecca Solnit

When it's going well [writing] goes terribly fast. It isn't at all surprising to write a chapter in a day, which for…

— John le Carre

There's so much control, so many executive producers, so many people looking over their shoulder, so many people trying to second-guess the…

— Ken Loach

If you tell certain people that you like Kerouac, they assume that's all you read, like you don't know anything else about…

— Ben Gibbard

I do think that short story writing is often a matter of luck.

— Robert Sheckley

Writing is one of the main ways that I process the experience.

— Jennifer Pharr Davis

I thought a dignified thing to do would be to live in the country by the time I'm 50 and write books

— Julian Clary

Truth be told, when you start your career out as a clown, you don't consider yourself a writer.

— Lizz Winstead

That's what I like most about writing fiction over journalism: the easy metaphors!

— Michael Connelly

The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite.

— Anonymous

Nothing improves your writing, I think, as much as your keeping writing.

— Nikki Giovanni

Good writing is good writing, but that doesn't mean you can't orchestrate it or tweak it.

— John Travolta

“To those who no longer have a homeland, writing becomes home”

— Theodor W. Adorno

Writing is like making love. Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.

— Isabel Allende

I don't set goals for myself too much, but I'm always trying to write that one great song.

— Sheryl Crow

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.

— Stephen King

Comedians are really writers who don't have pens and pencils about them, but they riff.

— Carl Reiner

Writing is nagging, fascinating, troublesome and exciting.

— Mani Ratnam

I'm really grateful that I could write. But I don't even mind it going on around me.

— Carrie Fisher

You can't be a proper writer without a touch of madness, can you?

— Kate Winslet