Writing quotes
30.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe."
"I'd spent ten years in London, writing and performing my own comedy shows. They gave me the Cheers [scenes], and I thought it was the springboard for chatting about the show, because in England, that's what you do. So I walk in, and I'm looking around, and Jimmy Burrows said, "What are you looking at? You're not here to have a conversation; you're here to audition.""
"I'm not writing about things other women do. I'm writing for other women to have more self-confidence because I need it myself! And if more women were in power, I would feel more comfortable."
"I think you can refine what you do, and become more consistent. And you write better songs that have a better shape and a better feeling. You evolve into and out of things, and go through stages, but, ultimately, you do improve."
"The more closely the author thinks of why he wrote, the more he comes to regard his imagination as a kind of self-generating cement which glued his facts together, and his emotions as a kind of dark and obscure designer of those facts. Reluctantly, he comes to the conclusion that to account for his book is to account for his life."
"[My muse] she's impatient with me, because I don't do what I should do: sit down and write."
"If you don't like my book, write your own. If you don't think you can write a novel, that ought to tell you something. If you think you can, do. No excuses. If you still don't like my novel, find a book you do like. Life is too short to be miserable. If you do like my novels, I commend your good taste."
"The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life."
"I've nothing against anyone following their dreams - but not if they're crap."
"There is something false in this search for a purely feminine writing style. Language, such as it is, is inherited from a masculine society, and it contains many male prejudices. We must rid language of all that. Still, a language is not something created artificially; the proletariat can't use a different language from the bourgeoisie, even if they use it differently, even if from time to time they invent something, technical words or even a kind of worker's slang, which can be very beautiful and very rich. Women can do that as well, enrich their language, clean it up."
"A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes."
"In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent businessman."
"Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile."
"Writing a poem is discovering."
"Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second."
"Never discuss the poem you contemplate writing. It's like turning on the outside spigot. It takes all the pressure off the upstairs bathroom."
"All there is to writing is having ideas. To learn to write is to learn to have ideas."
"I've given offense by saying I'd as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down."
"The truth is I've been doing Kickstarter before there was Kickstarter; there was no Internet. Social Media was writing letters, making phone calls, beating the bushes."
"At the top of the cycle you write policies for everybody, no matter how bad, and at the bottom you cancel everybody, no matter how good. It's a manic-depressive cycle."
