Young Writers Quotes - Page 2

• I think the path for a young writer might be one that says, "I have to accept myself, this is what I am. I can't eradicate my defects. I can work on them."

  George Saunders

  Thinking, Might, Path

  Source: therumpus.net

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• If a young writer can refrain from writing, he shouldn’t hesitate to do so.

  Andre Gide

  Writing, Refrain, Ifs

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• So if I were talking to a young writer, I would recommend the cultivation of extreme indifference to both praise and blame because praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers.

  John Berryman

  Vanity, Self, Talking

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• I think young writers should get other degrees first, social sciences, arts degrees or even business degrees. What you learn is research skills, a necessity because a lot of writing is about trying to find information.

  Irvine Welsh

  Inspirational, Funny, Graduation

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• Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man.

  E. B. White

  Writing, Men, Advice

  E. B. WHITE (1954). “The SECOND TREE from the CORNER”

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• I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start off with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That's like starting in at rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. Short stories help you learn your craft.

  George R. R. Martin

  Book, Rocks, Climbing

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• What the young writer is looking for is not a critic who will slap him on the back and say, 'Greatest thing since O. Henry,' but rather the one who will toss the manuscript down in disgust, with 'You know better than that! It's rotten! Do it all over again!'

  Henry Sydnor Harrison

  Writing, Rotten, Toss

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• As a young writer, I was on guard against the Latina in me, the Spanish in me because as far as I could see the models that were presented to me did not include my world. In fact, 'I was told by one teacher in college that one could only write poetry in the language in which one first said Mother. That left me out of American literature, for sure.

  Julia Alvarez

  Mother, Teacher, Writing

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• I still feel the impulse to give young writers a hearing, and I believe I have played more unpublished compositions than any other band leader in the country.

  John Philip Sousa

  Country, Believe, Giving

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• A workshop is a way of renting an audience, and making sure you're communicating what you think you're communicating. It's so easy as a young writer to think you're been very clear when in fact you haven't.

  Octavia Butler

  Thinking, Way, Facts

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• I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they'd be good at

  Anne Tyler

  Thinking, Earth, May

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• Young writers should definitely research the current sounds and styles.

  Lamont Dozier

  Style, Sound, Research

  "Legendary Trio Holland-Dozier-Holland Talk About Their Motown Hits, and New Projects". Interview with Dale Kawashima, www.songwriteruniverse.com. 2005.

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• I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame.

  Zadie Smith

  Book, Writing, Ambition

  "White knuckle ride". The Guardian interview, www.theguardian.com. December 11, 2000.

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• Young writers should be encouraged to write, and discouraged from thinking they are writers. If they arrive at college with literary ambitions, they should be told that everything they have done since their first childhood poems, printed in the school paper, has been preparation for entering a long, long apprenticeship.

  Wallace Stegner

  Writing, Ambition, School

  "On Teaching and Writing Fiction".

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• Success breeds volume, and it's just amazing how many young writers, artists, and musicians there are in town.

  Steven Curtis Chapman

  Artist, Musician, Towns

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• Whenever I'm asked what advice I have for young writers, I always say that the first thing is to read, and to read a lot. The second thing is to write. And the third thing, which I think is absolutely vital, is to tell stories and listen closely to the stories you're being told.

  John Green

  Writing, Thinking, Advice

  John Green (2012). “An Abundance of Katherines”, p.216, Penguin UK

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• I often think I can see it in myself and in other young writers, this desperate desire to please coupled with a kind of hostility to the reader.

  David Foster Wallace

  Thinking, Desire, Kind

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• Theater is still a medium which attracts young writers. You'd think that it would be all over by now, with television and film. But it's not.

  Tom Stoppard

  Thinking, Would Be, Television

  Interview with James Mustich, www.barnesandnoble.com. February 2, 2009.

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• You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

  Mario Vargas Llosa

  Teaching, Writing, Creativity

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• What first stuns the young writer emerging from college is that there is no clear-cut road for him to travel on. He must chop a path in the wilderness of his own soul, a disheartening process, lifelong and lonesome and therefore, of what use graduate work?

  Brad Gooch

  Education, Teaching, Cutting

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• Young writers should be encouraged to write, and discouraged from thinking they are writers.

  Wallace Stegner

  Teaching, Writing, Thinking

  Wallace Stegner (2002). “On Teaching and Writing Fiction”, p.31, Penguin

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• I've never seen a worse situation than that of young writers in the United States. The publishing business in North America is so commercialized.

  Manuel Puig

  North Wind, America, United States

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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, Writing, Long

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• On the day when a young writer corrects his first proof-sheet he is as proud as a schoolboy who has just got his first dose of pox.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Writing, Proud, Pox

  Charles Baudelaire, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden (2006). “Intimate Journals”, p.85, Courier Corporation

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• I kind of wish people didn’t know who I am, that I could just lie, say I’m a speechwriter for Obama. This is what I said before Twilight. And then Obama came along and picked up all these young writers. I found out this guy, Jon Favreau — who’s not the actor Jon Favreau — is writing for him. And I was like, Wow, I wonder if the people who thought I was bullshitting at the time are like, ‘Oh my god. That guy! That kid who was drunk in some bar actually wrote the health care bill!’

  Robert Pattinson

  Lying, Twilight, Writing

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