Quotes About Writing

However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.

aunque nazca uno con algún talento, el arte de escribir no se aprende repentinamente. Remití

ni acerca de un libro si es útil, sino si está bien escrito. Las

Mis sentimientos se acomodaron con una rapidez inconcebible al tono de mis ideas. El entusiasmo por la verdad, la libertad y la virtud ahogó todas mis pequeñas pasiones; y lo mas sorprendente es que esta efervescencia subsistió en mi corazón durante más de cuatro o cinco años, llegando a tan alto grado como jamás haya existido en otro corazón humano. Escribí

Rien de vigoureux, rien de grand ne peut partir d'une plume toute vénale.

Figurábanse que yo podía escribir por oficio, como los demás literatos, cuando jamás he sabido escribir sino movido por la pasión

Las distracciones de mis diarios paseos se han llenado a menudo de encantadoras contemplaciones cuyo recuerdo me lastimo de haber perdido. Fijaré por medio de la escritura las que aún me vengan a la mente; gozaré cada vez que las relea.

However great a man's natural talent may be, the art of writing cannot be learned all at once. Jean-Jaeques Rousseau

To write a love letter, you have to start, without knowing, what you want to say, and end, without knowing what you have said.

She decided to keep this letter because of the strange way it was written.

Doon went up close to the wall of the hotel and examined the words scratched there. He pictured the people who had done it, clutching their burnt chunks of wood, writing with big, angry strokes in the dark of the night. Yes, Tick was right. Hatred seethed in those jagged letters. He felt almost as if their strokes had scraped open his skin.

Writing it has been a way of coming to terms with the impact these years have had on my entire life.

Mais comme mes regards tombaient sur le bloc de feuilles blanches, je fus saisi par son aspect et je restai, la plume en l'air, à contempler ce papier éblouissant : comme il était dur et voyant, comme il était présent. Il n'y avait rien en lui que du présent. Les lettres que je venais d'y tracer n'étaient pas encore sèches et déjà elles ne m'appartenaient plus.

The truth is that I can't put down my pen: I think I'm going to have the Nausea and I feel as though I'm delaying it while writing. So I write whatever comes into my mind.

I'm not writing my book on Rollebon any more; it's finished, I can't write any more of it. What am I going to do with my life?

I am not listening to him any more, but he must have strayed from his original subject because I suddenly hear: . . . to have, as you, the good fortune of writing a book. I have to say something. Good fortune, I say, dubiously. He mistakes the sense of my answer and rapidly corrects himself: Monsieur, I should have said: 'merit.

The creative writer uses his life as well as being its victim; he can control, in his work, the self-presentation that in actuality is at the mercy of a thousand accidents.

I enjoy adapting my own work, or anybody's work. I like to adapt books.

I think of us as journalists; the medium we work in is blogging.

I work full-time in a used bookstore. I get up. I drink a cup of coffee. I think, The last thing I want to do is write. Then I go to the computer and write.

I have the "thing" worked out - the trick or the surprise or the pivotal fact. Then I just start somewhere and let the story work itself out.

It's an enormous relief to go to work and be an actor and not be worried about writing.

I've gotten a lot of livid letters about the awfulness of my work. I've never known what to make of it. Why do people bother to write if they hate what I do?

Fiction is not a dream. Nor is it guesswork. It is imagining based on facts, and the facts must be accurate or the work of imagining will not stand up.