Quotes About Writing

Writing a book is an adventure: it begins as an amusement, then it becomes a mistress, then a master, and finally a tyrant.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

Writing a long and substantial book is like having a friend and companion at your side, to whom you can always turn for comfort and amusement, and whose society becomes more attractive as a new and widening field of interest is lighted in the mind.

Yo estaba acostumbrado desde hacia ya mucho tiempo a escribir todas mis notas con tinta encarnada; Fisher empleaba corrientemente un lápiz verde. Cito sus palabras: «Eran las luces de babor y estribor». En tanto estas brillaran juntas, todo iría bien. Habíamos montado una combinación, que en tanto subsistiera, no podía ser vencida ni por intrigas interiores ni por el enemigo en el mar.

Writing a long and substantial book is like having a friend and companion at your side, to whom you can always turn for comfort and amusement, and whose society becomes more attractive as a new and widening field

I've wanted to write about them for a long while, but it's a tricky subject, always put off for later and perhaps worthy of a better poet, even more stunned by the world than I. But time is short. I write.

I've wanted to write about them for a long while, but it's a tricky subject, always put off for later and perhaps worthy of a better poet, even more stunned by the world than I. But time is short. I write.

De vreugde van het schrijven. De macht van vereeuwiging. De wraak van een sterfelijke hand.

?ycie pisze najbardziej oryginalne, najbardziej komiczne a jednocze?nie najbardziej dramatyczne scenariusze.

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page, are letters up to no good, clutches of clauses so subordinate they'll never let her get away. From, The Joy of Writing, Wislawa Szymborska

It is not without pleasure that i can tell my majestic colleagues who write for humanity, and in the name of humanity, that i have never written a single word other than for a selfish purpose; but at, each time, the work betrayed me and escaped from me

Jak mam co? do napisania, to staram si? pisa? jak najm?drzej i ?eby to by?o jak najlepsze. A to, czy ja jestem Polak podczas pisania, czy jestem Chi?czyk, to do mnie nie nale?y. Ja jestem cz?owiek i moj? robot? musz? zrobi? jak najlepiej.

It seems to me that here, accidentally, I have betrayed the greatest and ultimate secret of style: we have to know how to delight in the word. If literature generally dares to speak, it is not at all because it is certain of its truth, but only because it is certain of its delight.

Potrzeba, jedna z najbardziej natr?tnych, podczas pisania do?? pornograficznej miejscami Pornografii: przepu?ci? ?wiat przez m?odo??; przet?umaczy? na j?zyk m?odo?ci, czyli na j?zyk atrakcji... Zmi?kczy? go m?odo?ci?... Zaprawi? go m?odo?ci? - aby da? si? zgwa?ci?...

I can say without exaggeration that I "devoted myself" to literature. For me, literature is not a matter of a career and future monuments but the excavating from myself of the maximum value of which I am capable. If it were to turn out that that which I write is inconsequential, then I am defeated not only as a writer but as a man.

writing Jeeves stories gives me a great deal of pleasure and keeps me out of the public houses.

Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress truth.

Wir brauchen keine Dichter mit guter Grammatik. Zu guter Grammatik fehlt uns Geduld.

Maugham then offers the greatest advice anyone could give to a young author: At the end of an interrogation sentence, place a question mark. You'd be surprised how effective it can be.

In order to be a writer, Maugham continues: one must take chances and not be afraid to look foolish. I wrote The Razor's Edge while wearing a paper hat….

If it's bad, I'll hate it because I hate bad writing. If it's good, I'll be envious and hate it all the more.

What people who don't write don't understand is that they think you make up the line consciously — but you don't. It proceeds from your unconscious. So it's the same surprise to you when it emerges as it is to the audience when the comic says it. I don't think of the joke and then say it. I say it and then realize what I've said. And I laugh at it, because I'm hearing it for the first time myself.

I am one who shares Saul Bellow's estimate of Hemingway rather than John Updike's. I could pick up any book of his and turn to any page and read and the poetry of his prose kills me.

Writing with someone mitigates the intense loneliness.