Quotes
To have one's individuality completely ignored is like being pushed quite out of life. Like being blown out as one blows out a light.
-Evelyn Scott
Fill your paper with the breathing of you heart. -William Wordsworth
To hold a pen is to be at war.
You need to stay drunk on writing so reality does not destroy you.
The wastebasket is the writers' best friend. -Isaac Bashevis Singer
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. -Anton Chekhov
Easy reading is damn hard writing. -Nathaniel Hawthorne
A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote. -Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.
How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?
For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. -Vita Sackville-West
Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm -Benjamin Disraeli
"Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. - Socrates
Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm. - Benjamin Disraeli
Everything is sweetened by risk. - Alexander Smith
"Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie." Stephen King
"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." Henry David Thoreau
"You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it's going to be too difficult for adults, you write it for children." Madeleine L'Engle
"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." W. Somerset Maugham
"Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague." William Safire
"If I fall asleep with a pen in my hands, don't remove it; I might be writing in my dreams." Danzae Pace
-Evelyn Scott
Fill your paper with the breathing of you heart. -William Wordsworth
To hold a pen is to be at war.
You need to stay drunk on writing so reality does not destroy you.
The wastebasket is the writers' best friend. -Isaac Bashevis Singer
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. -Anton Chekhov
Easy reading is damn hard writing. -Nathaniel Hawthorne
A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote. -Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.
How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?
For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. -Vita Sackville-West
Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm -Benjamin Disraeli
"Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. - Socrates
Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm. - Benjamin Disraeli
Everything is sweetened by risk. - Alexander Smith
"Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie." Stephen King
"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." Henry David Thoreau
"You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it's going to be too difficult for adults, you write it for children." Madeleine L'Engle
"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." W. Somerset Maugham
"Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague." William Safire
"If I fall asleep with a pen in my hands, don't remove it; I might be writing in my dreams." Danzae Pace
"To finish is a sadness to a writer--a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done." - John Steinbeck
"There are two types of writers: those who write with their brains, and those who write with their souls."
“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” E. L. Doctorow
"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."
- Cyril Connolly
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." - Douglas Adams
"If you have a little voice inside your head that talks to you, don't worry you're human. If you have three or four voices that argue with each other, don't worry, you're a writer." -?
"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individuals from the successful ones is a lot of hard work." -Stephen King
"Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praise worthy method." - Walter Benjamin
"Lies are attempts to hide the truth by willfully denying facts. Fiction, on the other hand, is an attempt to reveal the truth by ignoring the facts." -John Green
"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original; Whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original." -CS Lewis
Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies. ~Emme Woodhull-Bäche
"There are two types of writers: those who write with their brains, and those who write with their souls."
“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” E. L. Doctorow
"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."
- Cyril Connolly
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." - Douglas Adams
"If you have a little voice inside your head that talks to you, don't worry you're human. If you have three or four voices that argue with each other, don't worry, you're a writer." -?
"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individuals from the successful ones is a lot of hard work." -Stephen King
"Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praise worthy method." - Walter Benjamin
"Lies are attempts to hide the truth by willfully denying facts. Fiction, on the other hand, is an attempt to reveal the truth by ignoring the facts." -John Green
"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original; Whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original." -CS Lewis
Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies. ~Emme Woodhull-Bäche