Quotes About Writing

The invention of farming around ten thousand years ago multiplied the availability of calories from cultivated plants and domesticated animals, freed a portion of the population from the demands of hunting and gathering, and eventually gave them the luxury of writing, thinking, and accumulating their ideas.

the difficulty of a sentence depends not just on its word count but on its geometry. Good writers often use very long sentences, and they garnish them with words that are, strictly speaking, needless. But they get away with it by arranging the words so that a reader can absorb them a phrase at a time, each phrase conveying a chunk of conceptual structure.

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Good writing starts strong. Not with a cliché ("Since the dawn of time"), not with a banality ("Recently, scholars have been increasingly concerned with the question of . . ."), but with a contentful observation that provokes curiosity.

I'm not one for walking the beaches humming a melody. I love the discipline of sitting in the studio, writing and listening. That is my domain.

Just write and love what you're writing. And if you're not loving what you're writing, take a look at why and fix that.

It's not a terribly original thing to say, but I love Raymond Carver. For one thing, he's fun to read out loud.

Writing is a cop-out. An excuse to live perpetually in fantasy land, where you can create, direct and watch the products of your own head. Very selfish.

I love being an author. I love actual writing, and I love communicating with children. And it keeps me young.

A man is in no danger so long as he talks his love; but to write it is to impale himself on his own pothooks.

As I tell my intro creative writing students, after reading someone you love, wait at least an hour before starting to write.

Love's stories written in love's richest books. To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.

I do love translating; it is the pure pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing.

When the poet is in love, he is incapable of writing poetry on love. He has to write when he remembers that he was in love.

My writing arises out of erotic impulse toward an other: it is an act of love. And I want terribly to be loved in return, as a sign that I have loved well enough.

I wrote my first book when I was 22 years old. I have a way with words and I love to write. I can write without getting writers block so I knew, it was a gift.

Other-Love is writing's first name.

I love the right words. I think economy and precision of language are important.

I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real.... Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible.

I love the writing. I love the idea of typing and seeing it on the computer and printing it out myself and, you know, moving sentences around. I like that.

I don't have any desire to retire in the sense of not doing anything. Because as long as the Lord gives me strength I want to keep writing and keep preaching. I love what I do.

I'm just writin' about my little ol' love affair.

As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.

I love to write. It's my first love.

I am sorry for people who can't write letters. But I suspect also that you and I ... love to write them because it's kind of like working without really doing it.