Quotes About Writing

It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places. Would you write 'A Happy Birthday' on it for me?

Like all really nice people, you have a weakness for detective stories, and feel that there are not enough of them. So, after all that you have done for me, the least that I can do for you is to write you one.

TO MY COLLABORATOR who buys the ink and paper laughs and, in fact, does all the really difficult part of the business this book is gratefully dedicated in memory of a winter's morning in Switzerland

Nouns and verbs are the guts of the language. Beware of covering up with adjectives and adverbs.

I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.

Estoy convencido, Lucas, de que todo ser humano ha nacido para escribir un libro, solo para eso. Un libro genial o un libro mediocre, da igual, pero el que no escriba nada es un ser malogrado, que ha pasado por la tierra sin dejar ninguna huella.

There will be pages. Lots and lots of pages. Most of the pages will have letters on them, and a vast majority of these letters will be in the Roman alphabet.

The purpose of books is not to be read. I buy books not to read them. I own a lot of books. I write books, I collect books, I think about books, I copy books, I pay for books – I'm in the book business. But I don't read books.

Don't blurt out your theme. Let it emerge from the story. If you must come out and say it, do it in dialog, not narration.

I love writing, but hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, Giftless. I'm not your agent and I'm not your mommy: I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like.

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

I don't want to analyze myself or anything, but I think, in fact I know this to be true, that I enter the world through what I write. I grew up believing, and continue to believe, that I am a screw-up, that growing up with my family and friends, I had nothing to offer in any conversation. But when I started writing, suddenly there was something that I brought to the party that was at a high-enough level.

In that moment, Dan was reminded why he wanted to write in the first place. It was the same reason anybody does anything -- to impress women. (Jeremy Goodwin, Sports Night)

I'm aware that I have a distinguishable style. It's not something that I set out to do, but this is how I write. I or anyone else would be foolish to try hard to not write like themselves.

I avoid writing until I can't avoid it anymore. Until writing comes knocking at my door like a friend I've neglected.

My muse, whatever it is, is leading me to write stories.

I'm finding out that if you have the ending from the get-go, then you're in good shape. Problem is, I rarely have the ending from the get-go.

The Arab World is writing a new future the pen is in our own hands.

Oviedo, que escribe catorce horas por día, será el conquistador de los conquistadores, el depósito de la verdad. El corral de hechos y personas. Hará con la pluma mucho más de lo que efectivamente hicimos nosotros con la espada. Curioso destino. Pero Jehová mismo no sería Jehová si los judíos no lo hubiesen encerrado en un libro.

hay cosas, palabras, que uno lleva mordidas adentro y las lleva toda la vida, hasta que una noche siente que debe escribirlas, decírselas a alguien, porque si no las dice van a seguir ahí, doliendo, clavadas para siempre en la vergüenza.

The act of writing itself is much like the construction of a mirror made of words. Looking at certain illuminated corners of or cracks within the mirror, the author can see fragments of an objective reality that comprise the physical universe, social communities, political dynamics, and other facets of human existence. Looking in certain other corners of the same mirror, he or she may experience glimpses of a True Self sheltered deftly behind a mask of public proprieties.

When the lyrical muse sings the creative pen dances.

The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large.

I have not felt in a humor to entertain you if I had taken up my pen. Perhaps some unbecoming invective might have fallen from it.