100 Best Sayings About Writing, Writing Quotes

Writing objects to the lie that life is small. Writing is a cell of energy. Writing defines itself. Writing draws its viewer in for longer than an instant. Writing exhibits boldness. Writing restores power to exalt, unnerve, shock, and transform us. Writing does not imitate life, it anticipates life.

Jeanette Winterson

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Unknown Author Quotes

Writing is really just a matter of writing a lot, writing consistently and having faith that you'll continue to get better and better. Sometimes, people think that if they don't display great talent and have some success right away, they won't succeed. But writing is about struggling through and learning and finding out what it is about writing itself that you really love.

Laura Kasischke

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Unknown Author Quotes

When I'm writing, I'm writing for a particular actor. When a lot of writers are writing, they're writing an idea. So they're not really writing in a specific voice.

Todd Phillips

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Unknown Author Quotes

More than this, I believe that the only lastingly important form of writing is writing for children. It is writing that is carried in the reader's heart for a lifetime; it is writing that speaks to the future.

Sonya Hartnett

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Unknown Author Quotes

You honor your writing space by recovering, if you are an addict. You honor your writing space by becoming an anxiety expert, a real pro at mindfulness and personal calming. You honor your writing space by affirming that you matter, that your writing life matters, and that your current writing project matters. You honor your writing space by entering it with this mantra: "I am ready to work." You enter, grow quiet, and vanish into your writing.

Eric Maisel

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Unknown Author Quotes

When I'm writing a novel or doing other serious writing work, I do it on a schedule that dictates writing either 2,000 words a day or writing until noon. After I hit whichever mark comes first, then I can give my attention to everything else I have to do.

John Scalzi

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Unknown Author Quotes

Writing, for me, when I'm writing in the first-person, is like a form of acting. So as I'm writing, the character or self I'm writing about and my whole self - when I began the book - become entwined. It's soon hard to tell them apart. The voice I'm trying to explore directs my own perceptions and thoughts.

Sheila Heti

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Unknown Author Quotes

Writing is writing to me. I'm incapable of saying no to any writing job, so I've done everything - historical fiction, myths, fairy tales, anything that anybody expresses any interest in me writing, I'll write. It's the same reason I used to read as a child: I like going somewhere else and being someone else.

Geraldine McCaughrean

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Unknown Author Quotes

The secret to writing is writing. Lots of people I know talk about writing. They will tell me about the book they are going to write, or are thinking about writing, or may write some day in the future. And I know they will never do it. If someone is serious about writing, then they will sit down every day and put some words down on paper.

Michael Scott

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Unknown Author Quotes

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Unknown Author Quotes

We're pretty regular guys. Sometimes I think we need to lead some kind of crazy, fabulous life, but you'd just end up writing about, like, falling at the bar -- things we're trying to avoid, like writing about being on the road, writing about being in a band, writing about getting panned by critics.

Peter Arcuni

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Unknown Author Quotes

Writing for adults and writing for young people is really not that different. As a reporter, I have always tried to write as clearly and simply as possible. I like clean, unadorned writing. So writing for a younger audience was largely an exercise in making my prose even more clear and direct, and in avoiding complicated digressions.

Serge Schmemann

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Unknown Author Quotes

I enjoy writing, sometimes; I think that most writers will tell you about the agony of writing more than the joy of writing, but writing is what I was meant to do.

Leon Uris

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Unknown Author Quotes

Write all the time. I believe in writing every day, at least a thousand words a day. We have a strange idea about writing: that it can be done, and done well, without a great deal of effort. Dancers practice every day, musicians practice every day, even when they are at the peak of their careers - especially then. Somehow, we don't take writing as seriously. But writing - writing wonderfully - takes just as much dedication.

Theodora Goss

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Unknown Author Quotes

Write all the time. I believe in writing every day, at least a thousand words a day. We have a strange idea about writing: that it can be done, and done well, without a great deal of effort. Dancers practice every day, musicians practice every day, even when they are at the peak of their careers "" especially then. Somehow, we don't take writing as seriously. But writing "" writing wonderfully "" takes just as much dedication.

Theodora Goss

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Unknown Author Quotes

I am keenly aware that in writing about my mother, I am writing about my aunts' sister, and that in writing about my grandmother, I'm writing about their mother. I know that my honesty about how my view of these people has changed over the years may be painful.

Tracy K. Smith

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Unknown Author Quotes

Writing has to do with truth-telling. When you're writing, let's say, an essay for a magazine, you try to tell the truth at every moment. You do your best to quote people accurately and get everything right. Writing a novel is a break from that: freedom. When you're writing a novel, you are in charge; you can beef things up.

Nicholson Baker

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Unknown Author Quotes

If you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work.

Ursula K. Le Guin

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Unknown Author Quotes

On the craft level, writing for children is not so different from writing for adults. You still have to have a story that moves forward. You still have to have the tools of the trade down. The difference arises in the knowledge of who you're writing for. This isn't necessary true of writing for adults.

Kathi Appelt

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Unknown Author Quotes

Whether it's writing a monologue or writing standup or writing a screenplay or writing a play, I think staying involved in the creation of your own work empowers you in a way, even if you don't ever do it. It gives you a sense of ownership and a sense of purpose, which I think as an actor is really important.

Denis O'Hare

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Unknown Author Quotes

Actually, I've taught creative writing in Turkey, at an English language university, where the students were native Turkish speakers, but they were writing their essays in English, and they were very interesting - even the sense of structure, the conventions of writing, the different styles of writing.

Elif Batuman

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Unknown Author Quotes

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Unknown Author Quotes

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Unknown Author Quotes

If I'm writing a novel, I'll probably get up in the morning, do email, perhaps blog, deal with emergencies, and then be off novel-writing around 1.00pm and stop around 6.00pm. And I'll be writing in longhand, a safe distance from my computer. If I'm not writing a novel, there is no schedule, and scripts and introductions and whatnot can find themselves being written at any time and on anything.

Neil Gaiman

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Unknown Author Quotes

I don't think you could teach someone to be a genius, but you can certainly teach them to not make rookie mistakes and to look at writing the way a writer looks at writing, and not just the way a reader looks at writing. There are a lot of techniques and skills that can be taught that will be helpful to anybody, no matter how gifted they are, and I think writing programs can be very good for people.

Michael Chabon

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Unknown Author Quotes

I started writing sketches with Dennis Kelly, who I ended up writing 'Pulling' with. We entered a BBC competition and did quite well, then started writing bits for other people's shows. You wheedle your way in, write pilots and eventually you end up writing a sitcom.

Sharon Horgan

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Unknown Author Quotes

I had been writing for the 'Late Show' for about four years when I started writing short stories. I had a blast writing the stories because I was writing in a voice more my own, as opposed to a man's. HBO ended up buying four of them. I think that had a direct impact on my decision to write a book.

Jill Davis

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Unknown Author Quotes

Right now-whether you're in writing courses getting "paid" in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers-figure out how to make writing an integral part of your life. Publication is good, and gives you the courage to go on, but publication is not as important as the act of writing.

Janet Burroway

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Unknown Author Quotes

If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position hire the best writer. it doesn't matter if the person is marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever, their writing skills will pay off. That's because being a good writer is about more than writing clear writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. great writers know how to communicate. they make things easy to understand. they can put themselves in someone else's shoes. they know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate. Writing is making a comeback all over our society... Writing is today's currency for good ideas.

Jason Fried

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Unknown Author Quotes

The secret to writing is just to write. Write every day. Never stop writing. Write on every surface you see; write on people on the street. When the cops come to arrest you, write on the cops. Write on the police car. Write on the judge. I'm in jail forever now, and the prison cell walls are completely covered with my writing, and I keep writing on the writing I wrote. That's my method.

Neil Gaiman

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Unknown Author Quotes

Writing is the dragon that lives underneath my floorboards. The one I incessantly feed for fear it may turn and devour my ass. Writing is the friend who doesn't return my phone calls; the itch I'm unable to scratch; a dinner invitation from a cannibal; elevator music for a narcoleptic. Writing is the hope of lifting all boats by pissing in the ocean. Writing isn't something that makes me happy like a good cup of coffee. It's just something I do because not writing, as I've found, is so much worse.

Quentin R. Bufogle

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Unknown Author Quotes

we should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. we should write because writing is good for the soul. we should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in.

Julia Cameron

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Unknown Author Quotes

A distinction must be made between that writing which enables us to hold on to life even as we are clinging to old hurts and wounds and that writing which offers to us a space where we are able to confront reality in such a way that we live more fully. Such writing is not an anchor that we mistakenly cling to so as not to drown. It is writing that truly rescues, that enables us to reach the shore, to recover.

bell hooks

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Unknown Author Quotes

We should write because it is human nature to write. Writing claims our world. It makes it directly and specifically our own. We should write because humans are spiritual beings and writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us both to our own insights and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance. We should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. Writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. We should write because writing is good for the soul. We should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in. We should write, above all, because we are writers, whether we call ourselves that or not.

Julia Cameron

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Unknown Author Quotes

In the minds of some people, writing is one thing, but thinking is quite another. If they define writing as spelling, the production of sentences with random meanings, and punctuation, then they might have a case. But who would accept such a definition? Writing is the production of meaning. Writing is thinking.

George Hillocks Jr.

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Unknown Author Quotes

People who write for reward by way of recognition or monetary gain don't know what they're doing. They're in the category of those who write; they are not writers. Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward. Writing is selfish and contradictory in its terms. First of all, you're writing for an audience of one, you must please the one person you're writing for. Yourself.

Harper Lee

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Unknown Author Quotes

writing home" here in the wilderness of australia writing home becomes easy in spite of the spreading wild fires there is less heat, more certainty. writing home, writing this i think of those without real homes- our city, people say, provides houses which do not, often, bring one home.

Kirpal Singh

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Unknown Author Quotes

When writing goes painfully, when it's hideously difficult, and one feels real despair (ah, the despair, silly as it is, is real!)-then naturally one ought to continue with the work; it would be cowardly to retreat. But when writing goes smoothly-why then one certainly should keep on working, since it would be stupid to stop. Consequently one is always writing or should be writing.

Joyce Carol Oates

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Unknown Author Quotes

When writing goes painfully, when it's hideously difficult, and one feels real despair (ah, the despair, silly as it is, is real!)""then naturally one ought to continue with the work; it would be cowardly to retreat. But when writing goes smoothly""why then one certainly should keep on working, since it would be stupid to stop. Consequently one is always writing or should be writing.

Joyce Carol Oates

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Unknown Author Quotes

Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader's mind---vividly, forcefully...

Samuel R. Delany

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Unknown Author Quotes

I approach writing female characters the same why I approach writing male characters. I never think I'm writing about women, I think I'm writing about one woman, one person. And I try to imagine what she is like, and endow her with a lot of my own thoughts and history.

Jeffrey Eugenides

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Unknown Author Quotes

I started writing prose before I started writing television. Then 'Breaking Bad' came around, and to me, writing 'Breaking Bad' is like writing a novel each season. So it's been very creatively satisfying writing for the show.

George Mastras

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Unknown Author Quotes

I hate writing. I so intensely hate writing -- I cannot tell you how much. The moment I am at the end of one project I have the idea that I didn't really succeed in telling what I wanted to tell, that I need a new project -- it's an absolute nightmare. But my whole economy of writing is in fact based on an obsessional ritual to avoid the actual act of writing.

Slavoj Å½iÅ¾ek

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Unknown Author Quotes

I feel very much a part of what I'm writing about, and I'm writing about things that concern me on a daily basis. I'm not really interested in writing musical diaries, if you know what I mean.

Nick Cave

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Unknown Author Quotes

One constant writing ritual, no matter what I'm writing, is that I cannot write if people are around me. It wigs me out - the idea that someone is reading as I'm writing stuff.

Jennifer Armentrout

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Unknown Author Quotes

I figure I wrote 37 songs in 20 years, and that's not exactly a full-time job. It wasn't that I was writing and writing and writing and quit. -Tom Lehrer

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Unknown Author Quotes

Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know-and what we don't know-about whatever we're trying to learn.

William Zinsser

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Unknown Author Quotes

I don't understand why one should be one thing or the other. Writing, to me, is writing is writing. It should be a flexible tool. Whatever skills I have, have to work for me; I won't be dictated by them.

Sonya Hartnett

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