Quotes About Writing

I had hardly begun to read I asked how can you ever be sure that what you write is really any good at all and he said you can't you can't you can never be sure you die without knowing whether anything you wrote was any good if you have to be sure don't write — W.S. Merwin, from "Berryman," Flower & Hand: Poems, 1977-1983 (Copper Canyon Press; English Language edition October 1, 1996)

I had hardly begun to read I asked how can you ever be sure that what you write is really any good at all and he said you can't you can't you can never be sure you die without knowing whether anything you wrote was any good if you have to be sure don't write

Any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance.

I've always been humble and this even humbled me even more to definitely get a second chance at my career. There are still chapters I'm writing in this legacy.

Write what you care about. If you do that, you stand the best chance of doing your best writing.

Don't be afraid to write crap - it makes the best fertilizer. The more you write the better your chances of growing something wonderful.

I took five years on the first volume, five years on the second volume, and ten years on the third volume.

I am writing my second novel for children for Simon and Schuster.

I do a lot of performing, but don't get a chance to go to the studio and write good music.

If you can't write your own material, you have very little chance of making it as a comedian.

It is a racking thing to have a plague of ideas and no chance to get rid of them on paper. I've nearly gone mad at times.

Chance has something to say, even how to write a good letter.

When I don't know the answer to something, I write a book about it because it gives me a chance to explore it and go to some people who do have the answers.

I don't write on topics that require a lot of urgency. But in 'Stiff,' I wanted to change people's hearts about organ donation. Whenever I get a chance, I try to talk about that.

I might, by chance, write something just as shoddy; But then I wouldn't show it to everybody.

In a way, the cancer became an ally because it stopped me from running around so much. I was able to settle down and write things I hadn't had a chance to before.

There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.

I made straight A's and never got into any trouble, and I still impose those standards on myself. So writing is my chance to escape and become the sleaziest, scummiest role.

I use very little red. I use blue, yellow, a little green, but especially... black, white and grey. There is a certain need in me for communication with human beings. Black and white is writing.

The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties.

To hold a pen is to be at war.

Every spoken word double-crosses us. The written word is the only tolerable form of communication, as it isn't a stone in a bridge between souls but a ray of light between stars.

When it comes to giving advice, never do so unless you've first received a request in writing, signed by a lawyer.