Quotes About Writing

Robert Rivlin, a writer, and Karen Gravelle, a biopsychologist, teamed up to present the overall

By exploring who Vasari was, how he wrote his book, and what influence it has had on how we perceive art, then we can also explore the significant questions of what art is, why it is so important to the human species, and how we have interacted with it.

The cure for writer's cramp is writer's block.

One great difference between good writing, that readers overlook, and bad writing, that they fail to notice, has to do with the number of rewrites and revisions usually required by the former. It isn't at all easy to write clear, declarative prose—transparency evolves from ruthless cutting and trimming and is hard work—while lumpy, tangle-footed writing flows from the pen as if inspired by the Muse.

I will write. And then I'll make a fire. O, how these lines will soar up, The pages fall back to ash Under the savage slap Of a long-lapsed emptiness! With what an arrogant gesture I will be outstripped by the flame! And the foam of ashes will quiver But nothing will be born from them.

It was at 25, not 15, that I began to write. Yes, there were attempts before, writing attempts, but they were the mere scribbling of a child who through no fault of her own knew only half an alphabet. Now, in my 27th year, it is appetite I have, and abundance to garner. I can make up for lost time—and time is what I have to seek some truths and pull together some lost pieces. It's okay. I'll do it. I'll make up those years.

Books are the ultimate way for writers to reach immortality.

Mine your words as if digging for diamonds and gold.

Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

A scholar's ink lasts longer than a martyr's blood.

A writer in the act of writing must fear neither his own words nor anything else in the world. A writer who is afraid is no true writer.

I continue to write because my hand wants something to do and my notebook with its white lined pages has a kind of readiness to receive my thoughts and my tiredness and to be a bed that my letters can lie in. That way at least part of me has a place to lie down.

If writers were good business men, they'd have too much sense to be writers.

I think young writers should get other degrees first, social sciences, arts degrees or even business degrees. What you learn is research skills, a necessity because a lot of writing is about trying to find information.

I spend so much time on the screen when I am writing, the last thing you want to do is spend more time on the Internet looking at a screen. That's what I hate about all this technology.

If you talk about it, you probably won't write it

kau harus memperlakukan kegiatan menulismu sebagai sebuah karier. Kau tidak boleh membicarakannya. Kau harus melakukannya-ingin melakukannya, suka melakukannya walaupun harus kesepian, merasa bahwa di bumi tidak ada yang lebih penting ketika kau sedang melakukannya.

menulislah setiap hari, berpura-pura bahwa kau menerima gaji, berpura-pura bahwa kau harus menyerahkan sesuatu atau dipecat

When you are a free and independent writer, without employer, without hours or deadlines, you have to play little games to force yourself into the actual writing. For me, one game is to announce...that I have finally decided on my next book, that I am ready to write it...to put my pride on the line.

An absolutely necessary part of a writer's equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself.

I never drink while I'm working, but after a few glasses I get ideas that would never have occurred to me dead sober.

No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys the writing, even if he doesn't get paid for it.

Why does a man spend fifty years of his life in an occupation that is often painful? I once told a class I was teaching that writing is an intellectual contact sport, similar in some respects to football. The effort required can be exhausting, the goal unreached, and you are hurt on almost every play; but that doesn't deprive a man or a boy from getting peculiar pleasures from the game.