Good Writers Quotes - Page 3

• A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Friendship, Writing, Spirit

  Friedrich Nietzsche, R. J. Hollingdale (1996). “Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits”, p.92, Cambridge University Press

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• I don't think I'm a particularly good writer, and I'm not terribly insightful.

  Moby

  Thinking, Insightful

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• I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

  James A. Michener

  Writing, Crafts, Excellent

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• Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.

  George Lucas

  Writing, Thinking, Very Good

  "Cinematic Phenomenon". Interview, www.achievement.org. June 19, 1999.

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• Indeed, I am repeatedly astonished by the number of really good writers who understand human beings so well on paper but don't know how to deal with them in real life.

  Mark Haddon

  Real, Numbers, Paper

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• A good writer should be able to write comedic work that made you laugh, and scary stuff that made you scared, and fantasy or science fiction that imbued you with a sense of wonder, and mainstream journalism that gave you clear and concise information in a way that you wanted it.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Laughing, Scary

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• Why do I write? It's not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Smart, Loneliness, Writing

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• I don't think that there are very many good writers who don't live without a sense of tension. If they haven't got one immediately available to them, then they usually manage to manufacture it in their private lives.

  John le Carre

  Thinking, Tension, Private Life

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• Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.

  Mel Brooks

  Comedy, Eleven, Direct

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• A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender.

  Jim Bishop

  Book, Drunk, Bartending

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• The whole relationship between a writer's spiritual/emotional condition and the kind of wordstuff and form-making that's going on in his work is an interesting one. When I was an undergraduate, there was a glib notion around that there was no reason to suppose a bad man could be a good writer.

  Seamus Heaney

  Spiritual, Men, Emotional

  Source: www.questia.com

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• I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.

  Carl Sandburg

  Book, Writing, People

  Carl Sandburg, Margaret Sandburg, George Hendrick (1983). “Ever the winds of chance”, Univ of Illinois Pr

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• I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters.

  James A. Michener

  Writing, World, Want

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• Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.

  E. B. White

  Children, True Friend, Life Changing

  Charlotte'sWeb ch. 22 (1952)

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• To be a good writer... read a lot and write every day.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing

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• Bucky Katt: A bad writer is just a good writer with writer's block.

  Darby Conley

  Block, Writer's Block

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• There is this thing called the university, and everybody goes there now. And there are these things called teachers who make students read this book with good ideas or that book with good ideas until that's where we get our ideas. We don't think them; we read them in books. I like Utopian talk, speculation about what our planet should be, anger about what our planet is. I think writers are the most important members of society, not just potentially but actually. Good writers must have and stand by their own ideas.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Teacher, Book, Writing

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• a good writer should draw the reader in by starting in the middle of the story with a hook, then go back and fill in what happened before the hook. Once you have the reader hooked, you can write whatever you want as you slowly reel them in.

  Roland Smith

  Writing, Want, Hook

  Roland Smith (2008). “Peak”, p.1, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I'd like to have money. And I'd like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that's too adorable, I'd rather have money.

  Dorothy Parker

  Two, Adorable, Together

  Dorothy Parker (2004). “Dorothy Parker in Her Own Words”, Taylor Trade Publishing

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• A good writer is one you can read without breaking a sweat.

  Patricia T. O'Conner

  Sweat

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• What makes a good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious. Suspicion marks the real difference between the man who wants to write honest history and the one who'd rather write a good story.

  Jim Bishop

  Real, Writing, Men

  "Talk With Jim Bishop" by Lewis Nichols, www.nytimes.com. February 6, 1955.

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• Good writers are visible just behind their words.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Behinds, Visible

  William Zinsser (2012). “On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, p.21, Harper Collins

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• My grandfather had been a newspaper reporter, as was my uncle. They were pretty good writers and so I thought maybe somewhere down the line I would do some writing.

  Gene Hackman

  Uncles, Writing, Grandfather

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• Every good writer or filmmaker has something eating at them, right? That they can't quite get off their back . And so your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions.

  Bruce Springsteen

  Jobs, Care, Obsession

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• If you are a good writer - and I think I am - you are able to handle any kind of group and imagine their lives.

  Earl Hamner, Jr.

  Thinking, Groups, Able

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