Quotes About Writing

Y hay una mujer detrás del mostrador; preferiría leer su historia verdadera antes que la centésima quincuagésima vida de Napoleón o el septuagésimo estudio de Keats y su uso de la inversión miltoniana que en este momento están redactando el viejo profesor Z y sus homólogos.

Poiché una volta che il baco dei libri si è impadronito del sistema umano, lo indebolisce tanto che esso diventa una facile preda per quell'altro flagello, quello che si annida in fondo ai calamai e i cui germi pullulano in cima alla penna. La vittima incomincia a scrivere.

Yet even when they were freed from the practical impediments imposed upon their sex, they could not write because they had no tradition to follow. No sentence had been shaped, by long labor, to express the experience of women.

The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.

Nothing happens here except that I write and write, and curse and burn.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art; Annie Dillard and Cort Conley, eds., Modern American Memoirs; Patricia Hampl, I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory; Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life; Phillip Lopate, ed., The Art of the Personal Essay; Jane Taylor McDonnell, Living to Tell the Tale: A Guide to Writing Memoir; and William Zinsser, ed., Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir.

I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.

The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express is, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before.

The pleasures of writing correspond exactly to the pleasures of reading

Even while writing his book, he had become painfully aware how little he knew his own planet while attempting to piece together another one from jagged bits filched from deranged brains.

The mind writes with a pen, the heart, with a pencil.

Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.

I am aware of many things being quite as important as good writing and good reading; but in all things it is wiser to go directly to the quiddity, to the text, to the source, to the essence—and only then evolve whatever theories may tempt the philosopher, or the historian, or merely please the spirit of the day. Readers are born free and ought to remain free.

It is a singular reaction, this sitting still and writing, writing, writing, or ruminating at length, which is much the same, really.

If someday I make a dictionary of definitions wanting single words to head them, a cherished entry will be To abridge, expand, or otherwise alter or cause to be altered for the sake of belated improvement, one's own writings in translation.

how can I write about this when I am afraid of not having time to finish and of stirring up all these thoughts in vain?

This daily headache in the opaque air of this tombal jail is disturbing, but I must persevere. Have written more than a hundred pages and not got anywhere yet. My Calender is getting confused. That must have been around August 15, 1947. Don't think I can go on. Heart, head--everything. Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita. Repeat til page is full, printer.

Dr. Falternfels was writing and smiling; his sandwich was half unwrapped; his dog was dead.

I happen to be the kind of author who in starting to work on a book has no purpose than to get rid of that book....

Uvijek se možete pouzdati u ubojicu da ?e pisati kitnjastim stilom.

Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash. Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Interview in Writers at Work(Fourth Series, ed. by George Plimpton, 1976).

Aquello que se escribió con esfuerzo se lee con facilidad

But how can I begin writing when I do not know whether I shall have time enough, and the torture comes when you say to yourself, Yesterday there would have been enough times - and again you think, If only I had begun yesterday...

I am aware of many things being quite as important as good writing and good reading; but in all things it is wiser to go directly to the quiddity, to the text, to the source, to the essence—and only then evolve whatever theories may tempt the philosopher, or the historian, or merely please the spirit of the day.