Quotes About Writing

A book is almost always a collective effort, even if it has only a single author.

Sometimes writing is running downhill, your fingers jerking behind you on the keyboard the way your legs do when they can't quite keep up with gravity.

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.

So why do I write, torturing myself to put it down? Because in spite of myself I've learned some things. Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled "file and forget," and I can neither file nor forget. Nor will certain ideas forget me; they keep filing away at my lethargy, my complacency. Why should I be the one to dream this nightmare?

When students write from experience, they can breathe those specifics into their writing- dialect, odd smells, precise names of plants- that can animate even the most tired and tedious text.

Penulis sama dengan orang-orang lain, kecuali untuk satu perbedaan kecil yang penting. Orang lain berpikir dan merasa setiap hari, tetapi mereka tidak melakukan apa-apa dengan itu. Sebaliknya, penulis bereaksi.

Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration.

Willa Cather said that she write best when she stopped trying to write and began simply to remember.

One thing that separates would-be writers from working writers is that the latter know their work will never match their dreams.

Henrik Ibsen hung a picture of August Strindberg over his desk. "He is my mortal enemy and shall hang there and watch while I write!" explained Ibsen.

Success as a writer is within the grasp of whoever can tell a story on paper that people want to hear, and is willing to persist, to put up with boredom, frustration, and anxiety.

writing about something was not the moral equivalent of doing it

Writing is merely public speaking on paper, but to a much larger audience.

Authors always feel in danger of being abandoned by loved ones. This is a potent fear. Yet it's as inevitable as writer's cramp when we presume to write words for others to read.

Christopher Isherwood tried to trick a good topic into rising from his unconscious by irritating it, "deliberately writing nonsense until it intervenes, as it were, saying, 'All right, you idiot, let me fix this.

Those who generate fog are Wizards of Oz hoping desperately that nobody pulls the curtain to reveal a trembling little writer behind it. This seldom happens. Readers who dare to point out that incomprehensible writing can't be comprehended risk being told that the problem is theirs.

The most understandable trap is to wait for fear to subside before starting one's journey. It doesn't, won't, and shouldn't. Too much good writing comes from writers on the edge. Trying to defeat or portage around normal writing anxieties merely postpones the day when we confront our fears directly and find the courage to write.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Keys to Great Writing by Stephen Wilbers

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser (Collins, 2006)

Practicality requires that we stop somewhere in the process, but nothing actually says we can't keep on writing and revising. In fact, most writers continue to develop ideas and themes from one book to the next in what is essentially a lifelong evolution and revision.

Souls perish in spite of My bitter Passion. I am giving them the last hope of salvation; that is the Feast of My Mercy. If they will not adore My mercy, they will perish for all eternity. Secretary of My mercy, write, tell souls about this great mercy of mine, because the awful day, the day of My justice, is near.

Writing is wretched, discouraging, physically unhealthy, infinitely frustrating work. And when it all comes together it's utterly glorious." National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) Pep Talk

Expediency of literature, reason of literature, lawfulness of writing down a thought, is questioned; much is to say on both sides, and, while the fight waxes hot, thou, dearest scholar, stick to thy foolish task, add a line every hour, and between whiles add a line.