Young Writers Quotes - Page 3

• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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 don't think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write, he don't know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it -- you can't teach it.

  William Faulkner

  Writing, Thinking, People

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• Writing is a concentrated form of thinking...a young writer sees that with words he can place himself more clearly into the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions.

  Don DeLillo

  Writing, Thinking, People

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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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• 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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• I don't think poetry is something that can be taught. We can encourage young writers, but what you can't teach them is the very essence of poetry.

  Robert Morgan

  Thinking, Essence, Taught

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• The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Trouble, Sixty

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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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• Unfortunately many young writers are more concerned with fame than with their own work... It's much more important to write than to be written about.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Writing, Important, Fame

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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 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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• 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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• 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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• If I were to offer any advice to young writers, it would be this: be discriminating and be discerning about the work you set for yourself. That done, be the untutored traveler, the eager reader, the enthusiastic listener. Put what you learn together carefully, and then write thoughtfully, with respect both for the reader and your sources.

  Barry Lopez

  Writing, Advice, Together

  FaceBook post by Barry Lopez from Aug 04, 2011

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