Famous Writers Quotes - Page 2

• The road to hell is paved with leeks and potatoes

  Julie Powell

  Writing, Sisterhood, Skulls

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• There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Moving On, Powerful

  FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Feb 14, 2013

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• My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

  Anton Chekhov

  Lying, Writing, Stories

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• Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

  William Butler Yeats

  Inspirational, Wise, Teamwork

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• Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Writing, Hands, Ashamed

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.233, Penguin

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• It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Business, Writing, Thinking

  "With Hemingway". Book by Arnold Samuelson, 1984.

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• Writers are always selling somebody out.

  Joan Didion

  Writing, Journalism, Selling

  Slouching towards Bethlehem (1968) p. xvi

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• Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

  Anne Lamott

  Writing, Effort, Needs

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.25, Anchor

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• Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Life, Being Alone, Writing

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• As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Doubt, Adjectives

  Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) ch. 11

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• That famous writer’s block is a myth as far as I’m concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing. They don’t want to do it. They have become writers out of reasons of ambition. It must be a great strain to them to make marks on a page when they really have nothing much to say, and don’t enjoy doing it. I’m not so sure what I have to say but I certainly enjoy making sentences.

  Gore Vidal

  Block, Writing, Ambition

  FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Aug 06, 2012

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• I know of only one country, at least to my knowledge, which has a dissident culture where leading figures, I mean, the most famous writers, journalists, academics and so on, are not only critical of state policy, but are constantly carrying out civil disobedience and risking imprisonment and often being imprisoned, standing up for people's rights. That's Turkey.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Mean, Rights

  Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

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• The Revelation was my master's project, and after I finished it, I thought I'd send it off to a publisher and within a year or so be a rich and famous writer. Two years later I finally sold it. For a whopping $4,000. A year after that, it finally came out. Which explains why there are all those terrible jobs on my resume!

  Bentley Little

  Jobs, Years, Two

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• Being a famous writer is a little like being a tall dwarf. You're on the edge of normality.

  John Updike

  Dwarves, Littles, Fame

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• Finally and most important of all, authenticity means that you must do what you do the way you do it and allow everyone else the same courtesy. There was a time I wanted to be like every famous writer that ever lived. I tried to copy styles, reframe information, use similar artwork. I almost drove myself crazy! Now I just do what I do. I have mentors. There are people whose work I admire, but I write the way I write. I eat the way I eat. I dress the way I dress. I can't believe that God made us each so unique only to have us do everything the same way.

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Crazy, Believe, Writing

  Iyanla Vanzant (2012). “One Day My Soul Just Opened Up: 40 Days And 40 Nights Towards Spiritual Strength And Personal Growth”, p.243, Simon and Schuster

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• If you want help in starting to write memoirs, you don't want to fall into the clutches of a famous writer who has been hired to teach at a writing workshop solely because of his name's ability to attract students, rather than because of any teaching skill. You should not have to grapple with someone who secretly thinks you should be writing about his life rather than your own.

  Judith Barrington

  Fall, Teaching, Writing

  Judith Barrington (2002). “Writing the Memoir”

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• My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Jack London, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Pearl Buck, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to name a few.

  Debbie Macomber

  Children, Wall, Names

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• The routines of almost all famous writers, from Charles Darwin to John Grisham, similarly emphasise specific starting times, or number of hours worked, or words written. Such rituals provide a structure to work in, whether or not the feeling of motivation or inspiration happens to be present. They let people work alongside negative or positive emotions, instead of getting distracted by the effort of cultivating only positive ones. ‘Inspiration is for amateurs,’ the artist Chuck Close once memorably observed. ‘The rest of us just show up and get to work.

  Oliver Burkeman

  Motivation, Inspiration, Artist

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• Maybe it goes without saying that if you want to become a famous writer before you’re dead, you’ll have to write something. But the folks in my classes with the biggest ideas and the best publicity shots ready to grace the back covers of their best-selling novels are also usually the ones who aren’t holding any paper.

  Ariel Gore

  Writing, Class, Ideas

  Ariel Gore (2007). “How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights”, p.7, Three Rivers Press

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• SURE-FIRE SINGLES AD:
  Famous Writer needs woman to organize his life and spend his money. Loves to turn off Sunday football and go to the Botanical Gardens with that special someone. Will obtain plastic surgery if necessary.

  Joe Bob Briggs

  Football, Sunday, Garden

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• I've enjoyed being a famous writer-except that every once in a while you have to write something.

  Ken Kesey

  Writing, Enjoyed

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• A famous writer who wants to continue writing has to be constantly defending himself against fame.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Writing, Want, Fame

  "Gabriel García Márquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69". Interview with Peter H. Stone, www.theparisreview.org. 1981.

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• The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous. You know, my fantasy of being a famous writer, and again there's a slight disconnect with reality which happens a lot with me. I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen.

  J. K. Rowling

  Reality, Interesting, Would Be

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• If you could have a famous writer, dead or alive, write an obituary for you and really puff you up to have been something you weren’t, perhaps, or otherwise take liberties with your memory, what writer would you choose?

  Padgett Powell

  Memories, Writing, Liberty

  Padgett Powell (2010). “The Interrogative Mood”, p.22, Profile Books

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• For anyone to understand a regime like the GDR, the stories of ordinary people must be told. Not just the activists or the famous writers. You have to look at how normal people manage with such things in their pasts.

  Anna Funder

  Past, People, Ordinary

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