Writing By Writers Quotes

• And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.

  Arthur Plotnik

  Fire, Editing And Writing, Shows

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

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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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• 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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• The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

  Linus Pauling

  Motivational, Inspiring, Success

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• If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.

  Anais Nin

  Writing, Commitment, Culture

  "Woman as Writer" by Jeannette L. Webber and Joan Grumman, (p. 38), 1978.

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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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• Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Education, Teacher, Women

  Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose "The Nature and Aims of Fiction" (1969)

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• Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing.

  Sylvia Plath

  Success, Writing, Stink

  Barry Kyle, Sylvia Plath (1976). “Sylvia Plath, a Dramatic Portrait: Conceived and Adapted from Her Writings, by Barry Kyle”

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• Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

  Gene Fowler

  Inspirational, Writing, Blood

  Attributed without citation in Janice R. Matthews et al. "Successful Scientific Writing", p. 53, 2000.

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• Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

  George Orwell

  Struggle, Book, Writing

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.316, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Writing, Schizophrenia, Form

  Interview in "Writers at Work" (The Paris Review Interviews), 8th Series, 1988.

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• We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.

  Anais Nin

  Love, Writing, Heart

  "Woman as Writer" by Jeannette L. Webber and Joan Grumman, (p. 38), 1978.

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• I try to leave out the parts readers skip.

  Elmore Leonard

  Writing, Trying, Reader

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

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• The road to hell is paved with leeks and potatoes

  Julie Powell

  Writing, Sisterhood, Skulls

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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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• Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.

  A. A. Milne

  Success, Writing, Fame

  A. A. Milne “Not That It Matters”, Lulu.com

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• The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Teaching

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• The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wisdom, Writing, Procrastination

  Statement on April 14, 1775. "Life of Samuel Johnson". Book by James Boswell. Volume II, 1791.

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• You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

  Larry Niven

  Writing, Stories, Story Writers

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• A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

  Thomas Mann

  Writing, People, Difficult

  "Essays of Three Decades". Book by Thomas Mann, 1942.

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• It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

  Robert Benchley

  Inspirational, Funny, Time

  Quoted in Reader's Digest, Sept. 1949. According to Nigel Rees, Cassell's Humorous Quotations, the following appeared in Punch in 1924: " 'It took me nearly ten years to learn that I couldn't write.' 'I suppose you gave it up then?' 'Oh, no! By that time I had a reputation established.' " The issue referred to by Rees is 6 Feb., and the cartoonist is R. Curry.

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• If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.

  Kingsley Amis

  Writing, Editing, Littles

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• The road to Hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Dog, Writing, Sisterhood

  Ernest Hemingway (2016). “The Sun Also Rises”, p.37, Hamilton Books

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• No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Reading, Book, Writing

  "The Figure a Poem Makes". Book by Ernest Hemingway, 1939.

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• A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Reading, Hero

  1905 Heretics, ch.15.

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