Quotes About Writing

If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.

A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man.

A man armed with a rhyming dictionary is a dangerous man.

I need solitude for my writing; not 'like a hermit' - that wouldn't be enough - but like a dead man.

Neither man nor God is going to tell me what to write.

They had always told me that I wrote like a man.

A man of moderate Understanding, thinks he writes divinely: A man of good Understanding, thinks he writes reasonably.

The unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood, Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.

It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo.

Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.

A man who writes for a living does not have to go anywhere in particular, and he could rarely afford to if he wanted.

I don't believe the writer should know too much where he's going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprint—old man propaganda.

To be able to think freely, a man must be certain that no consequence will follow whatever he writes.

An architect ought to be an educated man so as to leave a more lasting remembrance in his treatises.

Personally, I do not believe that it is the duty of any man or woman to write a novel. In nine cases out of ten, there would be greater merit in leaving it unwritten.

When a man can observe himself suffering and is able, later, to describe what he's gone through, it means he was born for literature.

Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.

Feathers shall raise men even as they do birds towards heaven :- That is by letters written with their quills.

The proper definition of a man is an animal that writes letters.

What are letters?" "Kinda like mediaglyphics except they're all black, and they're tiny, they don't move, they're old and boring and really hard to read. But you can use 'em to make short words for long words.

It's not about how women are deficient. It's more about how men are deficient. Our social deficiencies, lack of perspective, or whatever you want to call it, is what enables us to study one species of dragonfly for twenty years, or sit in front of a computer for a hundred hours a week writing code. This is not the behavior of a well-balanced and healthy person, but it can obviously lead to great advances in synthetic fibers. Or whatever.

What's hard, in hacking as in fiction, is not writing, it's deciding what to write.

channeling Mongolian warriors. In 2007 Cooper fought a Chinese long-sword instructor on a Hong Kong rooftop—he never thought the experience would help him write battle scenes. In addition to being a member of the Mongoliad writing team, Cooper has written articles for various magazines.

Books are the single most efficient technology there is in terms of nimbleness and bang for the buck. You can present a whole universe in a book. It's produced simply by sitting in front of a typewriter or a computer and tapping on keys. There's no real limit to what you can conjure up in the reader's imagination by doing that. The book is irreplaceable.