Writers And Writing Quotes - Page 5

• I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.

  Peter De Vries

  Work, Writing, Written Word

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• There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

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• Resist the temptation to try to use dazzling style to conceal weakness of substance.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Writing, Temptation, Style

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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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• Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

  Stephen King

  Inspirational, Writing, Procrastination

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• Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.

  Jane Yolen

  Writing, Athlete, Character

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• Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Writing

  "Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend".

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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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• 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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• The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.

  Stephen King

  Kings, Writing, Interesting

  Stephen King (2000). “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”, p.277, Simon and Schuster

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• Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Writing, Ambitious, Rough Drafts

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• It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

  William Faulkner

  Moving, Writing, Character

  William Faulkner, Joseph L. Fant, Robert Paul Ashley (1964). “Faulkner at West Point”, p.101, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

  E. B. White

  Attitude, Writing, Reader

  William Strunk Jr., E.B. White (1962). “the Elements of Style”

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• There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Real Talk, Story Writers

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• Writing is the hardest work in the world not involving heavy lifting.

  Pete Hamill

  Writing, World, Heavy

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• Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper.

  John Steinbeck

  Writing, Paper, Whole

  John Steinbeck (1989). “Steinbeck: A Life in Letters”, p.611, Penguin

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• I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.

  Truman Capote

  Believe, Writing, Editing

  Lawrence Grobel, Truman Capote (1986). “Conversations with Capote”, Plume

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• There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.

  H. L. Mencken

  Writing, Dull, Subjects

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• The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.

  Leo Rosten

  Writing, Story Writers, Helping

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• The waste basket is the writer's best friend.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Friendship, Writing, Waste

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• Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down.

  John Steinbeck

  Great Writing, Whole, Writing By Writers

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• When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.

  George Orwell

  Art, Lying, Book

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.315, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him.

  Ray Bradbury

  Hero, Writing, Want

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• It is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

  Robert Southey

  Happiness, Teacher, Teaching

  "A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern" ed. by Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Company, (p. 52), 1908.

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