Writing Quotes - Page 28

• Writing is thinking on paper.

  William Zinsser

  Thinking, Paper

  "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser, Introduction, (p. vii), 1976.

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• Of all human activities, writing is the one for which it is easiest to find excuses not to begin – the desk’s too big, the desk’s too small, there’s too much noise, there’s too much quiet, it’s too hot, too cold, too early, too late. I had learned over the years to ignore them all, and simply to start.

  Robert Harris

  Years, Hot, Too Late

  "The Ghost". Book by Robert Harris, September 26, 2007.

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• You can have a very intense relationship with fictional characters because they are in your own head.

  J. K. Rowling

  Character, Intense, Fictional Character

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• The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way.

  Richard Harding Davis

  Old Things, Secret, Way

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• Sharing our stories can also be a means of healing. Grief and loss may isolate us, and anger may alienate us. Shared with others, these emotions can be powerfully uniting, as we see that we are not alone, and realize that others weep with us.

  Susan Wittig Albert

  Grief, Healing, Mean

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• There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Rejection, Suffering, World

  "Intuitions and Summaries of Thought" by Christian Nestell Bovee, Vol. I, (p. 68), 1862.

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• Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better.

  V. S. Pritchett

  Story Writers, Details, Stories

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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

  Character, Emotional, Dramatic Situations

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• Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Dog, Literature, Life Worth Living

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• Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed.

  Ray Bradbury

  Quality, Produce, Doomed

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

  Herman Melville

  Book, Fleas, Produce

  Moby Dick ch. 104 (1851)

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• There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

  Robert Graves

  Money, Poetry, Wealth

  Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.71, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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

  Ray Bradbury

  Hero, Want, Firsts

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• I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There's no tricks. It's honesty with big melodies.

  Bruno Mars

  Song, Honesty, Believe

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• The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn't matter.

  Edward Albee

  Optimism, Matter, Trouble

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• Good authors, too, who once knew better words now only use four-letter words writing prose... anything goes.

  Cole Porter

  Funny, Change, Humorous

  "Anything Goes" (song) (1934)

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• The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Blank Mind, Feelings, Pages

  Vladimir Nabokov (2017). “Lectures on Literature”, p.379, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In order to get inside their skin, I have to identify with them. That includes even the ones who are complete bastards, nasty, twisted, deeply flawed human beings with serious psychological problems. Even them. When I get inside their skin and look out through their eyes, I have to feel a certain - if not sympathy, certainly empathy for them. I have to try to perceive the world as they do, and that creates a certain amount of affection.

  George R. R. Martin

  Eye, Order, Empathy

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• The only time I know that something is true is the moment I discover it in the act of writing.

  Jean Malaquais

  Moments, Knows, Only Time

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• A great writer created a world of his own and his readers are proud to live in it. A lesser writer may entice them in for a moment, but soon he will watch them filing out.

  Cyril Connolly

  Watches, World, May

  1938 Enemies of Promise, ch.1.

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• Rule one of reading other people's stories is that whenever you say 'well that's not convincing' the author tells you that's the bit that wasn't made up. This is because real life is under no obligation to be convincing.

  Neil Gaiman

  Real, Reading, People

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• The ideas aren't that important. Really they aren't. Everyone's got an idea for a book, a movie, a story, a TV series.

  Neil Gaiman

  Book, Ideas, Important

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• In the same way that a woman becomes a prostitute. First I did it to please myself, then I did it to please my friends, and finally I did it for money.

  Ferenc Molnar

  Way, Firsts, Please

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• Young writers shouldn't be afraid of striving to emulate their favorites. It's a good way to learn, as long as you move on from it and don't publish too many of the results.

  Poppy Z. Brite

  Moving, Long, Way

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• I'm out there to clean the plate. Once they've read what I've written on a subject, I want them to think, 'That's it!' I think the highest aspiration people in our trade can have is that once they've written a story, nobody will ever try it again.

  Richard Ben Cramer

  Thinking, People, Trying

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