Writers And Writing Quotes - Page 4

• The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Writing, Two, Familiar

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• How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Beautiful, Book

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.8, Penguin

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• Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

  John Ruskin

  Writing, Reader, Skip

  "A Joy for Ever". Book by John Ruskin, note 6, 1857.

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• To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

  Herman Melville

  Book, Writing, Fleas

  Moby Dick ch. 104 (1851)

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• Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head.

  Gore Vidal

  Writing, Born, Company

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.

  Sidney Sheldon

  Writing, Pieces, Paper

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• Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Pay, Offers

  Mark Twain (1992). “Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays, Volume 1: 1852-1890”, p.644, Library of America

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• Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.

  Winston Churchill

  Book, Writing, Adventure

  Winston Churchill (1965). “Winston Churchill, His Wit and Wisdom: Selections from His Works and Speeches”

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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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• If you do not have an alert and curious interest in character and dramatic situation, if you have no visual imagination and are unable to distinguish between honest emotional reactions and sentimental approaches to life, you will never write a competent short story.

  Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien

  Writing, Character, Emotional

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• You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you.

  Arthur Plotnik

  Writing, Heart, Mind

  Arthur Plotnik (1984). “The elements of editing: a modern guide for editors and journalists”, Scribner Paper Fiction

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• All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery.

  George Orwell

  Selfish, Lying, Writing

  1946 'Why I Write'.

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• Writing a novel is like heading out over the open sea in a small boat. It helps, if you have a plan and a course laid out.

  John Gardner

  Writing, Sea, Helping

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• I have been successful probably because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Writing, Successful, Interesting

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• It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.

  C. J. Cherryh

  Writing, Long, Garbage

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• If I waited for perfection... I would never write a word.

  Margaret Atwood

  Writing, Perfect, Writers Block

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from May 05, 2014

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• People on the outside think there's something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it.

  Harlan Ellison

  Morning, Writing, Thinking

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• Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.

  Orson Scott Card

  Writing, Past, Ideas

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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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• Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Story Writers, Details

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• The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

  Anais Nin

  Inspirational Life, Memorable, Writing

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• Literature is all, or mostly, about sex.

  Anthony Burgess

  Sex, Writing, Literature

  Anthony Burgess (2012). “Little Wilson and Big God”, p.173, Random House

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• Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.

  J. P. Donleavy

  Writing, Worst Moments, Writing Fiction

  Quoted in Playboy, May 1979

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• Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Writing, Reading Literature

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

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• A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Morning, Writing, Color

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.86, Jazzybee Verlag

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