Writing Quotes - Page 32

• The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation.

  Elias Canetti

  Night, Literature, Infinite

  "Quote Unquote (A Handbook of Quotations)". Book by M.P. Singh, p. 302, January 1, 2005.

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.

  Ray Bradbury

  Ideas, Design, Needs

  23 Copy quote

• The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

  John Y. Campbell

  Home, Simple, Editors

  45 Copy quote

• You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.

  Ray Bradbury

  Thinking Of You, Creativity, Creative

  28 Copy quote

• My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

  Ray Bradbury

  Letting Go, Running, Ideas

  Ray Bradbury (1980). “The Stories of Ray Bradbury”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Life, Beautiful, Work

  16 Copy quote

• Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.

  Carol Burnett

  Life, Learning, Silence

  42 Copy quote

• Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Labor, Idleness

  Thomas Carlyle, G. B. Tennyson (1984). “Carlyle Reader”, p.16, CUP Archive

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Children's reading and children's thinking are the rock-bottom base upon which this country will rise. Or not rise. In these days of tension and confusion, writers are beginning to realize that books for children have a greater potential for good or evil than any other form of literature on earth.

  Dr. Seuss

  Country, Children, Book

  8 Copy quote

• . . . All artists’ work is autobiographical. Any writer’s work is a map of their psyche. You can really see what their concerns are, what their obsessions are, and what interests them.

  Kim Addonizio

  Artist, Maps, Obsession

  17 Copy quote

• Don't take life so serious. It ain't no-hows permanent.

  Walt Kelly

  Life, Serious, Permanent

  10 Copy quote

• The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write and keep on writing.

  Ken MacLeod

  Secret, Becoming

  47 Copy quote

• Truth, like beauty, varies its fashions, and is best recommended by different dresses to different minds; and he that recalls the attention of mankind to any part of learning which time has left behind it, may be truly said to advance the literatures of his own age. As the manners of nations vary, new topicks of persuasion become necessary, and new combinations of imagery are produced; and he that can accommodate himself to the reigning taste, may always have readers who perhaps would not have looked upon better performances.

  Samuel Johnson

  Fashion, Mind, Age

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I say work I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs.

  Margaret Laurence

  Mean Girls, Jobs, Odd

  58 Copy quote

• Observe, don't imitate.

  John M. Ford

  George H. Scithers, Darrell Schweitzer, Isaac Asimov, John M. Ford (1981). “On Writing Science Fiction: The Editors Strike Back”, p.13, Wildside Press LLC

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

  Anne Enright

  Thinking, Good Writing

  "Ten rules for writing fiction". www.theguardian.com. February 20, 2010.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Owl, Serious, May

  Ernest Hemingway (2014). “The Hemingway Collection”, p.2301, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the writer to the reader.

  Joseph Joubert

  Powerful, Never Giving Up, Doe

  7 Copy quote

• There is no great writing, only great rewriting.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Rewriting, Great Writing, Great Writers

  17 Copy quote

• Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Mother, Children, Moving

  "Exploring the Edge of the Fantasy Map: PW Talks with Patrick Rothfuss". Interview with Paul Goat Allen, www.publishersweekly.com. January 31, 2011.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experiments I decided to go my own way in style and see what would happen.

  Carl Sandburg

  Style, Literature, Way

  Carl Sandburg, Margaret Sandburg, George Hendrick (1999). “Ever the Winds of Chance”, p.138, University of Illinois Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

  John Updike

  Success, Decay, May

  John Updike's acceptance speech for Edward MacDowell Medal, as quoted in New York Times, August 26, 1981.

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing.

  Tennessee Williams

  Alive, Posthumous

  8 Copy quote

• I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart.

  Anne Frank

  Inspirational, Lying, Heart

  Anne Frank, General Press (2016). “The Diary of a Young Girl”, p.13, GENERAL PRESS

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Thinking, Questions And Answers, Questioning

  "An Enchanted Life: An Adept's Guide to Masterful Magick". Book by Patricia Telesco, November 1, 2001.

  46 Copy quote

  Show source