Quotes About Writing

It is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.

Grammar, which is the art of using words properly, comprises four parts: Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody.

Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them; so that he insinuates his sentiments and taste into their minds by an imperceptible influence. Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academical chair. They attend with awe and admiration; and his precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

ANSWER-JOBBER  (A'NSWER-JOBBER)   n.s.[from answer and jobber.]He that makes a trade of writing answers. What disgusts me from having any thing to do with answer-jobbers, is, that they have no conscience.Swift.

Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man's life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.

has been demanded, on one hand, that men should write as they speak; but, as it has been shown that this conformity never was attained in any language, and that it is not more easy to persuade men to agree exactly in speaking than in writing, it may be asked, with equal propriety, why men do not rather speak as they write. In

To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practises on others: in conversation we naturally diffuse our thoughts, and in writing we contract them; method is the excellence of writing, and unconstraint the grace of conversation. To read, write, and converse in due proportions is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.

Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.

When a man is unhappy he writes damned bad poetry, I find.

Ah,temos um mas. Você devia ter sido critica literaria. Eles atiram-nos flores e depois dão-nos um pontapé nos tomates. pag.130

Sandra Brown

When you face writer's block, just lower your standards and keep going.

Mary Henry ought to write romance novels. She has a way of embellishing that most authors would envy.

I scan the room. Catherine is writing quickly, her light brown hair falling over her face. She is left-handed, and because she writes in pencil her left arm is silver from wrist to elbow.

At this moment, the story in his head was perfect. He also knew from experience that it would degenerate the second he started typing, because such was the nature of writing.

He only had the imperfect medium of words.

I usually know what the crisis of the book is going to be, though I don't know how I'm going to get there. I try to make it bad enough that I don't know how I'm going to get out of it. And when I get there, I have to get out of it. I just get myself geared up, and I write every day and see what happens.

I've said that if you write, you're a writer. The reverse is also true: if you're a writer, you need to write. Even if you're not achieving certain career or artistic markers on your schedule, you'll be self-actualized or in the process of self-actualizing, and that's what helps equip you to give back to the world in a variety of ways.

When I'm at my best, my writing identity comes from a deep and quiet place where the noise of approval and disapproval is a neutral background landscape more than a declaration of who I am. Conversely, the times I feel the worst about being a writer are when I'm looking for likes, fishing for approval, or otherwise in search of evidence that I'm somebody, because I've momentarily forgotten I already am.

She said writting novels was like childbirth: if you truly remembered how awful it got, you'd never do it again.

I hate to be a nag, but you have got to read. Like most authors, I run creative writing workshops from time to time, and speak, when invited to writers' circles and at summer schools, and I'm continually amazed at the number of would-be writers who scarcely read. For ideas to germinate and proliferate there has to be fertile ground to sow them in, and for the ground to be fertile it must be mulched with observation, imagination, and other writing.

Edit more, my mantra.

I've written whole books in order to avoid writing other books.