Quotes About Writing

But the writing was clever. The facts, if not true, were well invented; the arguments, if not logical, were seductive. The

She had no ambition to write a good book, but was painfully anxious to write a book that the critics should say was good. Had

She was inclined to believe that but few men of business do write letters willingly, and that, of all men, lawyers are the least willing to do so. How reasonable it was that a man who had to perform a great part of his daily work with a pen in his hand, should loathe a pen when not at work.

Anthony Trollope

We must talk, think, and live up to the spirit of the times, and write up to it too, if that cacoethes be upon us, or else we are nought.

Perhaps I may do something by writing,' said Charley, very bashfully. 'By writing! ha, ha, ha,' and Alaric laughed somewhat cruelly at the poor navvy—' do something by writing! what will you do by writing? will you make £20,000—or 20,000 pence? Of all trades going, that, I should say, is likely to be the poorest for a poor man—the poorest and the most heart-breaking.

She continued writing up to 1856, when she was seventy-six years old,--and had at that time produced 114 volumes, of which the first was not written till she was fifty. Her career offers great encouragement to those who have not begun early in life, but are still ambitious to do something before they depart hence.

but she smiled and whispered, and made confidences, and looked out of her own eyes into men's eyes as though there might be some mysterious bond between her and them — if only mysterious circumstances would permit it. But the end of all was to induce some one to do something which would cause a publisher to give her good payment for indifferent writing, or an editor to be lenient when, upon the merits of the case, he should have been severe. Among

A novelist's characters must be with him as he lies down to sleep, and as he wakes from his dreams. He must learn to hate them and to love them.

I have never written except to fix and perpetuate the memory of these cuts, these scissions, these ruptures, these abrupt and bottomless falls.

Look in the heart and write...The man who writes like that, without pride or artifice, as it were for himself, is in reality speaking for humanity. Humanity will recognize itself in him, because it is human nature that has inspired the discourse. Life recognizes life!

Writing is communicating with an unknown intimate who is always available, the way the faithful can turn to God.

my editor John Homans

Writing is communicating with an unknown intimate who is always available, the way the faithful can turn to God. My lined notebooks were the only place I could say as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted. To this day I feel comforted and relieved of loneliness, no matter how foreign my surroundings, if I have a pad and a pen.

In writing you can always change the ending or delete a chapter that isn't working. Life is uncooperative, impartial, incontestable.

Shakespeare wrote sculduddery because he liked it, and for no other reason; his sensuality is the measure of his vitality.

The man credited with inventing the comma, colon, and full stop punctuation marks was a librarian of Alexandria called Aristophanes.

Die gesprochenen Worte sind die Zeichen von Vorstellungen in der Seele und die geschriebenen Worte sind die Zeichen von gesprochenen Worten. So wie nun die Schriftzeichen nicht bei allen Menschen dieselben sind, so sind auch die Worte nicht bei allen Menschen dieselben; aber die Vorstellungen in der Rede, deren unmittelbare Zeichen die Worte sind, sind bei allen Menschen dieselben und eben so sind die Gegenstände überall dieselben, von welchen diese Vorstellungen die Abbilder sind.

a poet must be a composer of plots rather than of verses

The present work is, then, the masterpiece of one particular literary genre that flourished in the fourth century BC in Greece, that of the rhetorical manual, and it is a remarkable fact that it should have fallen to Aristotle to write it. It

A good style must, first of all, be clear.

I couldn't write—or wouldn't write, at any rate—unable to face the grueling self-scrutiny that fiction demands

One-act [plays] are not strikingly remunerative, but, on the other hand, the veriest dullard could not spend more than a week in writing one.

First-class fiction is, and must be, in the final resort autobiographical.