Writing

W. Somerset Maugham Novelist, Playwright

Writing

"You cannot write well or much (and I venture the opinion that you cannot write well unless you write much) unless you form a habit."

Writing

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W. Somerset Maugham Novelist, Playwright

Writing

"To write simply is as difficult as to be good."

Writing Difficult Crafts

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W. Somerset Maugham Novelist, Playwright

Writing

"The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties."

Writing Trouble Young Writers

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Walt Whitman Poet, Essayist

Writing

"I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love."

Writing Love Friendship

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Warren Buffett Investor, Businessman

Writing

"There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight."

Thinking Writing Force

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Whitney Cummings Comedian, Actress, Writer

Writing

"I don't think that women necessarily always write like women. I was a writer on the Comedy Central Roasts for a while, and I always wrote the jokes that people assumed the men would write."

Thinking Men Writing

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William Blake Poet, Painter

Writing

"O white-robed Angel, guide my timorous hand to write as on a lofty rock with iron pen the words of truth, that all who pass may read."

Writing Hands Angel

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William S. Burroughs Writer

Writing

"You do an awful lot of bad writing in order to do any good writing. Incredibly bad. I think it would be very interesting to make a collection of some of the worst writing by good writers."

Thinking Writing Order

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William S. Burroughs Writer

Writing

"All political movements are basically anti-creative - since a political movement is a form of war. "There's no place for impractical dreamers around here," that's what they always say. "Your writing activities will be directed, kindly stop horsing around." "As for the smoking of marijuana, it is the exploitation for the workers." Both favor alcohol and are against pot."

Writing War Marijuana

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William S. Burroughs Writer

Writing

"Life is a cutup. And to pretend that you write or paint in a timeless vacuum is just simply . . . not . . . true, not in accord with the facts of human perception."

Writing Perception Vacuums

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William Shakespeare Playwright, Poet

Writing

"People’s good deeds we write in water. The evil deeds are etched in brass."

Writing Evil Water

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Willie Nelson Musician, Actor

Writing

"When I'm driving the highway by myself is when I write best."

Writing Driving Highways

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Winston Churchill Politician, Writer, Historian

Writing

"Writing is an adventure."

Writing Adventure

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Woody Allen Director, Actor, Writer

Writing

"In the shower, with the hot water coming down, you've left the real world behind, and very frequently things open up for you. It's the change of venue, the unblocking the attempt to force the ideas that's crippling you when you're trying to write."

Writing Real Ideas

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Woody Allen Director, Actor, Writer

Writing

"Sentence structure is innate, but whining is acquired."

Writing Editing Whining

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Woody Allen Director, Actor, Writer

Writing

"[Stanley] Kubrick was a great artist and a perfectionist. He always wanted the exact right thing. He did a million takes. Everything had to be perfect. I'm an imperfectionist. I don't really care that much about the work. I write quickly. I'm careless. I shoot carelessly."

Writing Artist Perfect

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Woodrow Wilson Politician

Writing

"It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."

Writing Regret Writing History

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Wilbur Smith Author

Writing

"Write for yourself, not for a perceived audience. If you do, you'll mostly fall flat on your face, because it's impossible to judge what people want. And you have to read. That's how you learn what is good writing and what is bad. Then the main thing is application. It's hard work."

Writing Fall Hard Work

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Walter Gilbert Biochemist

Writing

"Early on, it's good to develop the ability to write. Learning to write is a useful exercise, even if what you're writing about is not that relevant."

Writing Exercise Ability

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Umberto Eco Writer, Philosopher, Literary Critic

Writing

"I discovered ... that a novel has nothing to do with words in the first instance. Writing a novel is a cosmological matter, like the story told by Genesis (we all have to choose our role models, as Woody Allen puts it)."

Writing Roles Role Models

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