Writing Quotes · Page 400

“If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A shrink and a patient in a love-hate relationship. Who is REALLY the boss?”

— Mary Papas

What happens in the world affects me. Sometimes, that's part of the writing.

— Isabel Allende

There's a female writer-performer thing going on in TV right now.

— Mindy Kaling

That's all a writer has to write about - what he sees and hears and what not.

— Truman Capote

I always work from outline and almost always write out of sequence. It just works for me.

— Paul S. Kemp

Writing in public gives you that access to a junkyard of details all around you.

— Chuck Palahniuk

You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend.

— Ann Patchett

For me, as an audience member, I'm always most engaged by serialized storytelling, so as an actor, the thing that I take…

— Joshua Jackson

“I intend all my characters must escape from impossible situations; if they are not in trouble, then as a writer, I am.”

— Cleveland W. Gibson

I started writing when I was about fourteen, but when I was about sixteen you know, I heard Outkast, that was pretty…

— Bubba Sparxxx

In writing, punctuation plays the role of body language. It helps readers hear you the way you want to be heard.

— Russell Baker

Writing has been one of the most powerful influences in my life and it always has been since I was a little…

— Evangeline Lilly

The first law of history is to dread uttering a falsehood; the next is not to fear stating the truth; lastly, the…

— Pope Leo XIII

Being a TV comedian, actor, writer, columnist, and all that is quite helpful to me in acquiring wide varieties of knowledge, which…

— Takeshi Kitano

If you write great songs with meaning and emotion, they will last for ever because songs are the key to everything.

— Elton John

a writer doesn't only need the time when he's actually writing - he or she has got to have time to think…

— Nadine Gordimer

Every opportunity I've had to work and act with incredibly talented directors, like Dean Holland was on 'Love,' and the writers and…

— Milana Vayntrub

Rivers and mountains are beautiful and made heroes bow and compete to catch the girl- lovely earth. Yet the emperors Shih Huang…

— Mao Zedong

Prayer is like practicing the piano or ballet or writing: you have to bring your body for a very long time, in…

— Heather King

Once I had started, I discovered the secret pleasure of writing a novel. It's such an immersive, deep commitment. With short stories,…

— Debra Dean

The problems you have as a novelist tend to have to do with making a living and trying to find ways to…

— Michael Chabon

I dislike that premise implies that a fiction writer is incapable of dreaming up stories that can bring readers to tears, that…

— Leslie Pietrzyk

“What kind of thing is the religion those writings describe? The first difficulty before the enquirer is that the writings do not…

— Philip Hughes

I didn't want to write a 'black' book because black characters are a tough sell.

— Christopher Priest

Writing the book automatically made me accept myself and love myself more.

— Erica Mena

I like my quiet time. There is a writer's sensibility in me sometimes, where I step back.

— Barack Obama

Even this vein of writing is so foreign to me that I am amazed.

— David O. Selznick

I write to find out what I am thinking. I write to find out who I am. I write to understand things.

— Julia Alvarez

I never had this ego where I must write everything. I'm not Bob Dylan.

— Joe Bonamassa

The really good stuff- the 'Hamiltons' - comes out after decades of writing and being committed.

— Alice Ripley

To be honest, I've never had an easy relationship with being a writer, though I persist.

— Peter Gizzi

American writer 1803-1882 Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.

— Diane Ackerman

[Bill Shawn] didn't edit the writers very strongly, but he knew what he wanted.

— Nat Hentoff

Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel.

— Donna Tartt

When I'm writing a story, I try to reduce it to the barest possible components and go from there.

— David Lowery

What I write comes from a place of deep love, and a deep understanding of all kinds of otherness.

— Jacqueline Woodson

Never believe anything you think about yourself as a writer when you're not writing.

— David Milch

I don't write because there's an audience. I write because there is literature.

— Susan Sontag

I like narrative, and I ultimately am in love with the men and women I write about, most of them.

— Kevin Starr