Quotes About Writing

Both writing and poker function as economies of status and prestige, and both require a survivalist's iron will.

I do think most poets are in denial about what the real taboos in writing are--the real boundaries.

To make this world a whole lot brighter, when I grow up I'll be a writer.

Book writing, like any good work, demonstrates that our myths about individualism are untrue. All work worth doing is necessarily dependent upon the work, goodwill, support, and kindnesses of others.

Moreover, there is so much more that needs to be said; but book writing is like picture painting in this regard: it can never be "done," never "perfected." One must simply find a good stopping place, and I pray that I have chosen such a place to stop working on this particular project.

writers instinctively tried to generate plots from events around them as a means of survival, the way a pigeon is always searching for food, pecking at everything in sight. A spy lacked the imagination or the drive for that kind of free-association creativity.

don't know how much of this book has become reality in the time between when I finished writing it and when it ended up in your hands. My fear is that a lot of it has . .

I've reinvented myself many times over, picked up my broken wings and flapped till I could hop around again. I'm flying again now, in my bedroom, writing, looking out my window. I had no idea, until I began putting pen to paper, that so many memories were inside me waiting to be rediscovered. I'm very lucky. I may even come to know myself.

As writers we intend to make a difference, to alter people's lives for the greater good. . .this is why we write, to have an impact on society, to put a personal stamp on history. . .Art and literature are the legacies we leave to succeeding generations. We'll be forgotten, but our books and essays, our stories and poems can survive us. . .

Regret is my compass. I am an alchemist, trained in the transmutation of my nervous system. I have installed trained guides beside me. I am saving at least one life." "I keep writing. I must. Over and over and over. The same story a million ways.

Kristen Murphy

You see, more than a simple matter of putting down words, writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they're quite different from people who must write.

All I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama.

I like to write. Sometimes I'm afraid that I like it too much because when I get into work I don't want to leave it. As a result I'll go for days and days without leaving the house or wherever I happen to be. I'll go out long enough to get papers and pick up some food and that's it. It's strange, but instead of hating writing I love it too much.

You know, many writers really don't like to write. I think this the chief complaint of so many. They hate to write; they do it under the compulsion that makes any artist the victim he is, but they loathe the process of sitting down trying to turn thoughts into reasonable sentences.

That which is written without much effort is seldom read with much pleasure.

It's the writers' job to make it positive. It's my job to make it real.

As a writer I want everybody to get a chance to voice their opinions. If each character thinks that they're telling the truth, then it's valid. Then at the end of the film, I leave it up to the audience to decide who did the right thing.

Everybody wants to feel that you're writing to a certain demographic because that's good business, but I've never done that ... I tried to write stories that would interest me. I'd say, what would I like to read?... I don't think you can do your best work if you're writing for somebody else, because you never know what that somebody else really thinks or wants.

If you're writing about a character, if he's a powerful character, unless you give him vulnerability I don't think he'll be as interesting to the reader.

Comic book should be written as one word. So from now on, I want you to remember that. I never want to see the word comicbook written as two words. They are not funny books. They are not comic books, they are comicbooks! Remember that, or incur my wrath.

Jack [Kirby] and Joe [Simon] wrote and drew the stories themselves in the beginning and I was just, like, the office boy. But after a while they had more writing than they could handle and I was the only guy around, so they said, "Hey Stan, you think you can write this?" When you're seventeen years old, what do you know? I said, "Sure, I can do it!" And that was it.

I'm sort of a pressure writer. If somebody says, "Stan, write something," and I have to have it by tomorrow morning, I'll just sit down and I'll write it. It always seems to come to me. But I'm better doing a rushed job because if it isn't something that's due quickly, I won't work on it until it becomes almost an emergency and then I'll do it.

I've written so many things over the years that I don't want to go back to being just a scriptwriter. I'm in what I consider to be the enviable position of all I have to do is come up with the idea and write an outline that makes it seem like it's a viable idea that will interest people, and then other people write the scripts -- and I become the executive producer or the producer, depending on how much involvement I have, and I get a creative credit and then move on to the next project.