Quotes About Writing

I]t is really the ponderous books which I envy. How easy merely to put down everything you think or imagine. No holding back, no telling oneself that this does not belong, or that. No hewing to the line. No cutting. No fear of letting the interest die. No wastebasket. How wonderful. And how dull!

I would not have majored in English and gone on to teach literature had I not been able to construct a counterargument about the truthfulness of fiction; still, as writers turn away from the industrious villages of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, I learn less and less from them that helps me to ponder my life. In time, I found myself agreeing with the course evaluations written by my testier freshman students:'All the literature we read this term was depressing.' How naive. How sane.

I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.

As a child I scribbled; and my favorite pastime during the hours given me for recreation was to 'write stories'. Still, I had a dearer pleasure than this, which was the formation of castles in the air – the indulging in waking dreams – the following up trains of thought, which had for their subject the formation of a succession of imaginary incidents.

C'e' un desiderio che non sono mai riuscito a soddisfare, e l'assenza che deriva mi appare come il peggiore dei mali. Non ho un amico, Margaret: quando esultero' nell'entusiasmo del mio successo, nessuno partecipera' alla mia gioia; se saro' assalito dalla delusione, nessuno cerchera' di risollevarmi dall'abbattimento. Consegnero' i miei pensieri alla carta, questo si'; ma per comunicare i sentimenti e' un mezzo insufficiente.

I read my books with diligence, and mounting skill, and gathering certainty. I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.

I assure you, I've come to one of those natural breaks in the book, where one can walk away and let things go on working in the subconscious. It's true, don't look so unbelieving. It means I can afford to tear myself away from my view of the pigsties and go out on parole, as much as I like and you'll put up with.

I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me; whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.

I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true, but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling.

shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling.

If I should be engaged, I will at least make notes.

Rejection is a part of any man's life. If you can't accept and move past rejection, or at least use it as writing material - you're not a real man. -Master Jiraiya

Writing about an idea frees me of it. Thinking about it is a circle of repetitions.

Henry's novel The Portrait of a Lady was written in thrall to Darwin's idea of female choice as a force in evolution.

There is nothing that requires more precision, and purity of expression, than to write in a familiar style,' as the great English essayist William Hazlitt put it nearly two hundred years ago. 'To write as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity...' To me these are the cardinal virtues of strong, convincing English prose.

Journalism is literature in a hurry.

There's an entire genre of writing now that's empowered women to type out their sex fantasies and publish them on the Internet.

Though an angel should write, still 'tis devils must print

These writers take the essence of every person around them, turn them into books and stories without permission or even a simple thank-you, and want all the credit and glory for themselves.

When I ply the cutlass and make the equivalent of sixpence, idiot conscience applauds me. But if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds by writing, idiot conscience wails over my neglect and the day wasted. No, to come down covered with mud and drenched with sweat and rain after some hours in the bush. To change, rub down, and take a chair in the verandah, that makes for a quiet conscience.

Books inspire a man to embrace the world or flee it. They start wars and end them. They make the men and women who write and publish them vast fortunes, and nearly as quickly can drive them into madness and despair. Stay away from what you do not fathom from now on...

the city usually only dulled and interrupted him. He required quiet, and to keep himself to himself, more than any writer he'd known. He was a shy beast who loved his burrow.

On one of these gatherings, a guest speaker informed us that in 30 years, no one in America except the homeschoolers would know how to read or write. 

To anyone who knows a writer, never underestimate the power of your encouragement.