Writing Quotes - Page 37

• I'd rather be caught holding up a bank than stealing so much as a two-word phrase from another writer.

  Jack Smith

  Two, Phrases, Stealing

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• If my public existence does anything worthwhile, hopefully it at least demystifies the author a bit, because I know when I was younger I felt like authors were like wizards or something. Turns out they're total muggles.

  John Green

  Doe, Muggles, Wizards

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• One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it's kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling.

  Steven Brust

  Couple, Nice, Appreciate

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• I believe that in a good collaboration, the authors bring their strengths to the story; one author's strength cancels the other author's weakness, and back and forth it goes.

  Jack Dann

  Believe, Weakness, Collaboration

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• A man who is a genius and doesn't know it, probably isn't.

  Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

  Men, Genius, Knows

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• When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.

  Enrique Jardiel Poncela

  Effort, Gone, Writing Fiction

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• Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.

  Martin Heidegger

  Men, Facts, Language

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• Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

  William Shakespeare

  Crafts, Suits, Action

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 3, sc. 2, l. [19]

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• Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.

  Walter Bagehot

  Teeth, Grinder, Divided

  'Estimates of some Englishmen and Scotchmen' (1858) 'The First Edinburgh Reviewers'

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• There is a master way with words that cannot be learned but instead developed: a deaf man develops exceptional vision, a blind man exceptional hearing, a silent man, when given a piece of paper.

  Criss Jami

  Men, Vision, Pieces

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• The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.

  Stephen King

  Kings, Fool, Pens

  Stephen King (2002). “On Writing”, p.145, Simon and Schuster

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• Writing is a crummy profession, but a good hobby.

  Paavo Haavikko

  Hobbies, Profession

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• To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Letters, Proportion

  Samuel Johnson (1848). “The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.419

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• I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

  James A. Michener

  Crafts, Excellent, Brilliant Ideas

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• Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Nature, Rain, Feelings

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• I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.

  Franz Kafka

  Book, Thinking, Kind

  Franz Kafka (1979). “The Basic Kafka”, p.290, Simon and Schuster

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• Literature is all, or mostly, about sex.

  Anthony Burgess

  Sex, Literature, Writers And Writing

  Anthony Burgess (2012). “Little Wilson and Big God”, p.173, Random House

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• Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

  Virginia Woolf

  Soul, Secret, Mind

  Virginia Woolf, Michael H. Whitworth (2014). “Orlando: A Biography”, p.122, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there's an explosion-that's Plot.

  Leigh Brackett

  Reality, People, Desire

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• All fiction, if it's successful, is going to appeal to the emotions. Emotion is really what fiction is all about. That's not to say fiction can't be thoughtful, or present some interesting or provocative ideas to make us think. But if you want to present an intellectual argument, nonfiction is a better tool. You can drive a nail with a shoe but a hammer is a better tool for that. But fiction is about emotional resonance, about making us feel things on a primal and visceral level.

  George R. R. Martin

  Successful, Thinking, Thoughtful

  "A conversation with Game of Thrones author George RR Martin". Interview, www.smh.com.au. August 1, 2011.

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• One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.

  Carlos Fuentes

  Order, Stories, Want

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• Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

  T. S. Eliot

  Witty, Humorous, Editing

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• Write drunk; edit sober.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Witty, Clever, Humorous

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• I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.

  Anne Frank

  Life Changing, Kids, Sorrow

  FaceBook post by Anne Frank from Aug 12, 2015

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• Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.

  Winston Churchill

  Book, Adventure, Tyrants

  Winston Churchill (1965). “Winston Churchill, His Wit and Wisdom: Selections from His Works and Speeches”

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