Quotes About Writing

The writer in him is only the shadow of the man, though so often we observe men whose art of writing is so great, but whose art of living is so modest.

In seinem Schlösschen, wo er ab 1920 mit seiner Frau und deren zwei Töchtern aus erster Ehe lebt, entstehen Novellen, Dramen und Erzählungen.

la escritura, que ha evolucionado desde los pliegos más sencillos, pasando por los rollos, hasta culminar en el libro, ha puesto fin al trágico confinamiento de las vivencias y de la experiencia en el alma individual: desde que existe el libro nadie está ya completamente solo, sin otra perspectiva que la que le ofrece su propio punto de vista, pues tiene al alcance de su mano el presente y el pasado, el pensar y el sentir de toda la humanidad.

If today I were to counsel a young writer who is still unsure of his way, I would try to persuade him first to adapt or translate a sizable work. In all sacrificing service there is more assurance for the beginner than in his own creation, and nothing that one has ever done with devotion is done in vain.

Invento i libri e racconto di averli letti. Fingo così bene e li rigiro nel cervello così a lungo che forse a quel punto potrei anche scriverli. Ma fantasticare è piacevole, scrivere è faticoso.

It is rather frightening to be able to write so revoltingly, yet so successfully. All these letters are works of art, except, perhaps, the last. They are positively oily.

I found, after spending ten years as a journalist, learning to say exactly what I meant in short sentences, that I must learn, if I was to achieve literature and favourable reviews, to write as though I were not quite sure about what I meant but was jolly well going to say something all the same in sentences as long as possible.

Human beings: except inasmuch as they provided material for writers, what a bloody nuisance they were.

Und dann der Herbst! Unausstehlich, wenn man selber herbstelt! Alte Bunker erspähte ich, bröckelnde Mauern, erste gelbe Blätter, Morgennebel, Abendrauch. In früheren Jahren war bei mir das erste Anzeichen von Herbst immer eine Nachdenklichkeit, ein frommes Gefühl, eine Bereitschaft zu dienendem Fleiß Ã¢â'¬â€œ natürlich eine Spätfolge aus der Schulzeit! Im Herbst wurden neue, glatte, saubere Hefte angefangen, die erste Seite immer in Schönschrift.

I seem to be able to get away with pun strips if I add a panel at the end where I somehow indicate that I know it's a bad pun.

When you can't draw chameleons and you can't draw blenders, it's a bad idea to write strips where chameleons become blenders.

Scott Adams: From him, I learned how to write a three-panel comic. Probably the best pure writer on the comics page.

There is nothing like a bit of ink to bring reason to the most disordered mind.

as I have seen with other people whose sense of their work is vocational rather than pragmatic, my desire to write, to understand things at a depth I can reach in no other way, pushes me to write and go on writing, even when my wants—for an easier or more sociable life, or one less exposed and fraught—are certainly well known to my rational mind. p.293

Editing fiction is like using your fingers to untangle the hair of someone you love.

Some of what I wrote bordered on blasphemy....If there was a God, He would have to be truth. And in that case, candor--however impertinent--would be more pleasing to Him than posturing.

If only she could put them together, she felt, write them out in some sentence, then she would have got at the truth of things.

Good writing is remembering detail. Most people want to forget. Don't forget things that were painful or embarrassing or silly. Turn them into a story that tells the truth.

When you start putting pen to paper, you see a side of your personal truth that doesn't otherwise reveal itself in conversation or thought.

When I write I have no loyalty except to historical truth as I see it and care no more about British achievements and mistakes than any other.

There is no trick to writing a believable love story, a heartbreaking scene or real-sounding dialogue. All you need is to tell the truth. It's always heartbreaking.

Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there.

What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written.

I cling to the fantasy that I could have done something more creative. Like actually writing a script, or writing a book. But the awful truth is that I... probably can't!