Quotes About Writing

You can't create stories in a vacuum.

Writing well is the best revenge.

But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper.

A novel is an impression, not an argument; and there the matter must rest.

I looked up from my writing, And gave a start to see, As if rapt in my inditing, The moon's full gaze on me.

The regular resource of people who don't go enough into the world to live a novel is to write one. –

You must understand that when you are writing a novel you are not making anything up.

Writing novels is the hardest thing I've ever done, including digging irrigation ditches.

To write a novel, you begin with what you can see and then you add what came before and what came after.

When you are writing a novel, you aren't making it up. The story is already there. You just have to find it.

Easy reading is damned hard writing.

The easiest reading is damned hard writing.

A habilidade mais valiosa é aquela de jamais usar duas palavras quando uma apenas basta.

It is my hope that this book will help to demystify the origins of travel writing and show that when thousands of travelers follow a guidebook word-for-word, recommendation-for-recommendation, it not only harms contemporary international travel but can also do serious harm to places in developing countries.

It is as well that the world knows only a fine piece of work and not also its origins, the conditions under which it came into being; for knowledge of the sources of an artist's inspiration would often confuse readers and shock them, and the excellence of the writing would be of no avail.

What they, in their innocence, cannot comprehend is that a properly constituted, healthy, decent man never writes, acts, or composes.

Nothing gladdens a writer more than a thought that can become pure feeling and a feeling that can become pure thought.

Escribir bien casi supondría pensar bien, y esto no está muy lejos del obrar bien.

Felicità per lo scrittore è il pensiero che può diventare interamente il sentimento, il sentimento che può diventare pensiero. Tali erano il pensiero palpitante e il sentimento rigoroso che appartenevano e obbedivano in quel momento al solitario: cioè, che la natura rabbrividisce di voluttà quando lo spirito s'inchina davanti alla bellezza.

Bien écrire, c'est déjà presque bien penser, et il n'y a pas loin de là jusqu'à bien agir.

La dicha del escritor es su posibilidad de transformar la idea enteramente en sentimiento; el sentimiento, totalmente en idea.

Bien que le discours puisse agir d'une manière plus vivante et plus immédiate, la parole écrite n'en a pas moins cet avantage de pouvoir être méditée et formulée à loisir et à tête reposée, de rester immuable et de pouvoir être relue à volonté dans les termes et dans l'ordre que le signataire a soigneusement pesés et calculés, et partant, de conserver toujours la même efficacité

Lo scrittore è un uomo che più di chiunque altro ha difficoltà a scrivere.

If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.