Quotes About Writing

I use plane rides to write down my thoughts. Such as figuring out radial distance plots for Mars missions.

In barbaric lands like the Americas, writers produced their best work before learning the craft, and nine times out of ten, their book was the strongest, as well as being, in general, the only one they wrote.

After thirty years working as a commercial fiction translator, I've reached to the conclussion that, on average, the more pages a book has, the less literature there is in it.

I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it.... We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.

The secret of successful journalism is to make your readers so angry they will write half your paper for you.

You don't have good grammar when you type with your fists.

I never exactly made a book. It's rather like taking dictation. I was given things to say.

You can make anything by writing.

The spirit of the depths took my understanding and all my knowledge and placed them at the service of the inexplicable and the paradoxical. He robbed me of speech and writing for everything that was not in his service, namely the melting together of sense and nonsense, which produces the supreme meaning.

Jim Harrison's novels, John McPhee's nonfiction, Flannery O'Connor's short stories, and the crime novels of John Sandford, Ken Bruen, and T. Jefferson Parker. His books

Jim Harrison's novels, John McPhee's nonfiction, Flannery O'Connor's short stories, and the crime novels of John Sandford, Ken Bruen, and T. Jefferson Parker.

Even a bad review is still a review. It means someone cared enough to take the time to say: Hey, this sucks. Don't bother. Buy a DVD instead...Yes, someone cared. And isn't that what every writer dreams of?...So, how did I deal with bad reviews? How else? I cry. I get mad. I pretend not to care. Then I pour myself a glass of wine and call a friend to complain.

Queria tanto que alguém me amasse por alguma coisa que eu escrevi.

This same trend holds for the growing number of fields where technology makes productive remote work possible—consulting, marketing, writing, design, and so on. Once the talent market is made universally accessible, those at the peak of the market thrive while the rest suffer.

wherever they popped up. If my kids were taking a good nap, I'd grab my laptop and lock myself in the home office. If my wife wanted to visit her parents in nearby Annapolis on a weekend day, I'd take advantage of the extra child care to disappear to a quiet corner of their house to write.

He typically divides the writing of a scholarly paper into three discrete tasks: analyzing the data, writing a full draft, and editing the draft into something publishable.)

it's not just the change of environment or seeking of quiet that enables more depth. The dominant force is the psychology of committing so seriously to the task at hand. To put yourself in an exotic location to focus on a writing project, or to take a week off from work just to think, or to lock yourself in a hotel room until you complete an important invention: These gestures push your deep goal to a level of mental priority that helps unlock the needed mental resources.

Professional Goal: To craft well-written, narrative-driven stories that change the way people understand the world. Key Activities Supporting This Goal: • Research patiently and deeply. • Write carefully and with purpose.

Writing a letter to yourself is an excellent mechanism for generating exactly this type of solitude. It not only frees you from outside inputs but also provides a conceptual scaffolding on which to sort and organize your thinking. Not surprisingly, I'm not the only person to discover this particular solitude hack.

It was the glacial writing progress during this year that drove Chappell to embrace the rhythmic method. He made a rule that he would wake up and start working by five thirty every morning. He would then work until seven thirty, make breakfast, and go to work already done with his dissertation obligations for the day. Pleased by early progress, he soon pushed his wake-up time to four forty-five to squeeze out even more morning depth.

I call this approach, in which you fit deep work wherever you can into your schedule, the journalist philosophy. This name is a nod to the fact that journalists, like Walter Isaacson, are trained to shift into a writing mode on a moment's notice, as is required by the deadline-driven nature of their profession.

the journalist philosophy. This name is a nod to the fact that journalists, like Walter Isaacson, are trained to shift into a writing mode on a moment's notice, as is required by the deadline-driven nature of their profession.

I might finish writing at two or three A.M., then have to leave at eight the next morning to get back to my job at NBC on time," Alex recalls. It was a busy period. After

when paying more than $1,000 a day to write the chapter in a suite of an old hotel down the street from a Hogwarts-style castle, mustering the energy to begin and sustain this work is easier than if you were instead in a distracting home office.