Writing Quotes · Page 386

Writing is not describing, painting is not depicting. Verisimilitude is merely an illusion.

— Georges Braque

I don't want actors to be writers. I think it's too much responsibility.

— Susanne Bier

“Writers aren't exactly people, they're a bunch of people trying to be one person.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

I want to write songs with meaning. I have high standards for my work.

— Brett Dennen

A lot of times, real life is more surreal than writing.

— Jesmyn Ward

Writing is the place where I can do it all and get away with it. You can't do that in the theatre.

— Alice Ripley

“You know, missing someone can sometimes be the best thing for a writer.”

— Lang Leav

Writers - human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.

— Wole Soyinka

“What we need in literature today are vast philosophic horizons; we need the most ultimate, the most fearsome, the most fearless 'Why?'…

— Yevgeny Zamyatin

There are so many opportunities in life, that the loss of two or three capabilities is not necessarily debilitating. A handicap can…

— Jim Davis

Someone who does not write books, who thinks a lot, and who lives in unsatisfying society will usually be a good letter-…

— Friedrich Nietzsche

“I want to write a chicken story, starting from scratch, and my handwriting is chicken scratch so it’s perfect.”

— Jarod Kintz

I would hate to be a new artist or writer in town today. But somehow the cream continues to rise. If there's…

— Steven Curtis Chapman

Many people say to me, particularly about my dance writing, 'It sounds just like you.' But it sounds just like me after…

— Robert Gottlieb

Even listening to a lot of other music inspires me, too. Like I'll find something and be like, "I love this group!"…

— LeAnn Rimes

“The start of a run is like the start of a writing session: First you resist, then you threaten to quit, then…

— Gregor Collins

A lot of writers do think of their characters as living beings. I know that's the way people think. That's why I…

— Dennis Cooper

I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful…

— Anonymous

When you write something you know, you're making a story that will work, whether or not there's bits taken. It's always funny…

— Greta Gerwig

I think what happens is you write how you grew up. And I was born on the prairie, and so everything is…

— Patricia MacLachlan

“The world is full of people who write poorly but passionately, and others who can put a sentence together but have no…

— Kameron Hurley

“The obituary seemed like a washing of the body. It cleaned Steen up. The existence of the photographs, all the sordid aspects…

— Simon Brett

But it does no good--solves nothing--to distance myself from the front lines of human need by using the mail as a safe…

— Robert Fulghum

When I'm writing a new play, there's a period where I know I shouldn't be out in public much. I imagine most…

— Tony Kushner

The only good histories are those written by those who had command in the events they describe.

— Michel de Montaigne

I am of the firm opinion that no one should tell writers what to do, or what to write, or how to…

— Hisham Matar

You have to be compelled to write. If you’re not, nothing else that you do matters.

— Rick Riordan

Perhaps of all the creations of man language is the most astonishing.

— Lytton Strachey

“There is more to writing a book than just writing a book.”

— John Morris Benson

I write about what I know and also what I don't understand. Emotions for what has transpired.

— Lucrecia Martel

Don't wait until you're 'in the mood.' Get into the mood by writing.

— Margaret Atwood

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.

— David McCullough

I write seven days a week, starting at 4 o'clock in the morning, including Christmas.

— Dan Brown

Writers are given one great story to tell their story. I’m telling my story as a political document.

— Larry Kramer

Writers are rarely their own best critics, nor are critics.

— Anthony Burgess

“the end is already written, it’s just a matter of getting there.”

— Marie Hall

“Stop writing what you know and start writing what you want to know.”

— Tiffany Reisz

I always find something in common with my protagonist, particularly when I write in the first person.

— Emily Giffin

I started off writing TV adverts. I saw those as rehearsals for a feature film.

— Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Everything that I have written is closely related to something that I have lived through.

— Henrik Ibsen