Writing Stories Quotes - Page 2

• After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

  Philip Pullman

  Book, Writing, Mind

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• My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Inspirational Life, Writing, Kids

  Ernest Hemingway (2008). “The Good Life According to Hemingway”, Ecco

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• If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

  Toni Morrison

  Inspirational, Happiness, Attitude

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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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• It was not in my nature to be an assertive person. I was used to looking to others for guidance, for influence, sometimes for the most basic cues of life. And yet writing stories is one of the most assertive things a person can do. Fiction is an act of willfulness, a deliberate effort to reconceive, to rearrange, to reconstitute nothing short of reality itself. Even among the most reluctant and doubtful of writers, this willfulness must emerge. Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying, "Listen to me."

  Jhumpa Lahiri

  Writing, Mean, Reality

  "Trading Stories". www.newyorker.com. June 13 & 20, 2011.

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• Writing stories has given me the power to change things I could not change as a child. I can make boys into doctors. I can make fathers stop drinking. I can make mothers stay.

  Cynthia Rylant

  Mother, Children, Father

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• I think we fall in love and become adults and become citizens in a way by writing stories about ourselves.

  Mary Karr

  Falling In Love, Writing, Thinking

  "Mary Karr Interview: “Lit” Part II". Interview with Steve Ross, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 18, 2010.

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• One minute I was playing chess and doing maths all the time, the next I had been rerouted into more 'normal' girls' activities: reading, writing stories and worrying about my clothes.

  Scarlett Thomas

  Girl, Reading, Writing

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• But when I was a little kid, I was always writing stories and illustrating little books that I would create.

  Patricia Cornwell

  Book, Writing, Kids

  "Piers Morgan Tonight", www.cnn.com. December 9, 2011.

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• I started writing stories as a child.

  Danielle Steel

  Children, Writing, Ukulele

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• At eleven I was at the peak of my creative powers: I was writing stories and playlets, putting together poetryprojects. I was absorbed by my 'work.' At twelve I was no longer reading or writing, just counting off days and checking them off. I was interested in survival.

  Todd Solondz

  Reading, Writing, Creative

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• But then, that's the beauty of writing stories-each one is an exploratory journey in search of a reason and a shape. And when you find that reason and that shape, there's no feeling like it.

  T.C. Boyle

  Writing, Journey, Feelings

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• For me, writing stories set, well, wherever they're best set, is a form of cultural curiosity that is uniquely Scottish - we're famous for travelling in search of adventure.

  Sara Sheridan

  Writing, Adventure, Curiosity

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• I approach writing stories as a recorder. I think of my role as some kind of reporting device - recording and projecting.

  Jhumpa Lahiri

  Writing, Thinking, Roles

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• I'm used to writing stories with a beginning a middle and an end in four minutes.

  Steve Earle

  Writing, Stories, Four

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• Every story I've written was written because I had to write it. Writing stories is like breathing for me; it is my life.

  Ray Bradbury

  Writing, Breathing, Stories

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• Writing stories is a kind of magic, too.

  Cornelia Funke

  Writing, Magic, Stories

  Cornelia Funke (2011). “Inkheart”, p.525, Scholastic Inc.

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• Well, we're meant to be writing stories today.

  Mark Haddon

  Writing, Stories, Today

  Mark Haddon, Simon Stephens (2013). “Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: The Play”, p.15, A&C Black

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• Love is anticipation and memory, uncertainty and longing. It’s unreasonable, of course. Nothing begins with so much excitement and hope and pleasure as love, except maybe writing a story. And nothing fails as often, except writing stories. And like a story, love must be troubled to be interesting.

  John Dufresne

  Memories, Writing, Love Is

  John Dufresne (2008). “Love Warps the Mind a Little: A Novel”, p.140, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Gardening is akin to writing stories. No experience could have taught me more about grief or flowers, about achieving survival by going, your fingers in the ground, the limit of physical exhaustion.

  Eudora Welty

  Grief, Flower, Writing

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• Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.

  Emma Donoghue

  Reading, Writing, Individuality

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• I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don't know what I did before that. Just loafed I suppose.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Writing, Stories, Five

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• People ask me if there are going to be stories of Harry Potter as an adult. Frankly, if I wanted to, I could keep writing stories until Harry is a senior citizen, but I don't know how many people would actually want to read about a 65 year old Harry still at Hogwarts playing bingo with Ron and Hermione.

  J. K. Rowling

  Senior, Writing, Years

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• I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the level of success I've had. I was just writing stories for my own sons.

  Rick Riordan

  Writing, Son, Stories

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• Like so many writers I started writing stories because I didn't have much time for anything else.

  Tobias Wolff

  Time, Writing, Stories

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