Quotes About Writing

In my writing, I strive for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Tolkien at his best and Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay.

I made myself famous by writing 'songs' and lyrics about the beauty of the things I did and ugliness, too.

Writing well is the best revenge.

For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn't write anything.

There're no novels that I like to read so I write my own novels, and then I read them again, and it's the best thing.

The best advice on writing I've ever received was from William Zinsser: 'Be grateful for every word you can cut.'

I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.

That thing you had to force yourself to do-the actual act of writing-turns out to be the best part.

Maybe one thing is that you have to find the best way to write whatever works better for you.

I'm the most communal person that exists and a very solitary person. So I think writing is a form of getting to the community and being alone, and it's the best of both possible worlds.

Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days is being written by Southerners.

A writer's notebook is the best way in the world to immortalize bad ideas. My idea about a good idea is one that sticks around and sticks around and sticks around.

I have a much greater ambition to be the best racket player than the best prose writer.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

The best way to become a writer is to go off and write.

Sometimes the title comes to you at the beginning, sometimes it comes at the end. The very best way in my experience is when it comes in the middle.

The best way to tell people about climate change is through non-fiction. There's a vast literature of outstanding writing on the subject.

Studying writing to me means reading and also rewriting obsessively. That's the best way to learn.

Writing studio movies is the best job in the world... it's awesome.

One of the best things about writing is how it redeems, not to mention recycles, all of one's prior experiences, including or perhaps especially the failures.

My first true lesson in writing came from Mr. Bowden when I was 16. At my high school, he was the teacher known to be the very best at literature and writing.

With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.

Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.