Quotes About Writing

To write for posterity* is not to worry whether they will read us tomorrow. It is to aspire to a certain quality of writing. Even when no one reads us. *Posterity is not the whole of future generations. It is a small group of men with taste, a proper upbringing, and erudition, in each generation.

El hombre no se comunica con otro hombre sino cuando el uno escribe en su soledad y el otro lo lee en la suya. Las conversaciones son o diversión, o estafa, o esgrima.

Phrases are pebbles that the writer tosses into the reader's soul. The diameter of the concentric waves they displace depends on the dimensions of the pond.

Il est certains esprits dont les sombres pensées Sont d'un nuage épais toujours embarrassées ; Le jour de la raison ne le saurait percer. Avant donc que d'écrire, apprenez à penser. Selon que notre idée est plus ou moins obscure, L'expression la suit, ou moins nette, ou plus pure. Ce que l'on conçoit bien s'énonce clairement, Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément.

Înainte s? scrii, înva?? s? gânde?ti.

He who cannot limit himself will never know how to write.

Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.

Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it's something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about.

When I got older I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely.

I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

Writers don't write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don't. ...If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

this writing thing was some kind of magic trick I didn't yet understand, except for this: Magicians rarely share their secrets.

What are we to do with what we have written down? Certainly at first, we will produce mostly garbage. But we have been educated to expect something useful from our activities, and soon lose confidence if nothing useful seems to result. We should therefore reflect on whether and how we arrange our notes so they are available for later access.

No es posible pensar sistemáticamente sin escribir.

You can't imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays. The things these scribblers write!

All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see?

I like writing for children. It seems to me that most people underestimate their understanding and the strength of their feelings and in my books for them I try to put this right.

All writers are liars. They twist events to suit themselves. They make use of their own tragedies to make a better story... They are terrible people.

Agatha didn't have an office of her own. She wrote her books wherever she found herself, so long as she had a table and a typewriter. Really, she didn't even think of herself as an author. Her primary occupation and identity was Married Lady.

One hasn't become a writer until one has distilled writing into a habit, and that habit has been forced into an obsession. Writing has to be an obsession. It has to be something as organic, physiological and psychological as speaking or sleeping or eating.

My father was a writer and an acting teacher.

Having to read footnotes resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.

Writing is rewriting... If you fall in love with the vision you want of your work and not your words, the rewriting will become easier.

When I write, I can be heard. And known. But nobody has to look at me. Nobody has to see me at all.