Writing

Fernando Pessoa Poet, Writer

Writing

"I'm astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing; it should inhibit me from even beginning. But I get distracted and start doing something. What I achieve is not the product of an act of my will but of my will's surrender. I begin because I don't have the strength to think; I finish because I don't have the courage to quit. This book is my cowardice."

Thinking Writing Book

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Gene Wolfe Author

Writing

"You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing."

Writing Novel

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Haruki Murakami Writer

Writing

"To be able to talk to your heart’s content about a book you like with someone who feels the same way about it is one of the greatest joys that life can offer."

Writing Heart Book

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Franz Kafka Writer

Writing

"Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself."

Writing Loneliness Being Alone

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James Scott Bell Author

Writing

"In fact, one could argue that the skill of the fiction writer boils down to the ability to exploit intensity."

Writing Skills Fiction

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Kit Reed Author, Novelist

Writing

"Beginning to write, you discover what you have to write about."

Writing

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Barry Mann Songwriter

Writing

"If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today."

Writing Song Inspiration

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Ernest Hemingway Novelist

Writing

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."

Writing Truth Freedom

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Daniel Keys Moran Author, Screenwriter

Writing

"Plot and character are virtually the same thing."

Writing Character Plot

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Dean Wesley Smith Author

Writing

"I believe that a writer is a person who writes. An author is a person who has written."

Believe Writing Persons

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Celia Green Psychologist

Writing

"I cannot write long books; I leave that for those who have nothing to say."

Writing Book Long

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Alan Dean Foster Author

Writing

"The thing all writers do best is find ways to avoid writing."

Writing Way

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Blake Morrison Poet, Novelist

Writing

"Editing might be a bloody trade. But knives aren't the exclusive property of butchers. Surgeons use them too."

Writing Knives Editing

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Anne Stuart Author

Writing

"If we don't risk it all, we may as well not write at all."

Writing May Risk

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Anton Chekhov Playwright, Short Story Writer

Writing

"My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying."

Writing Lying Stories

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Winston Graham Author

Writing

"All I knew was that I was writing something out of my very guts, and that I was content."

Writing Guts

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Sally Mann Photographer

Writing

"The earth doesn’t care where death occurs. ...It’s the artist, by coming in and writing about it or painting it or taking a photograph of it, that makes the earth powerful and creates death’s memory. Because the land will not remember by itself, but the artist will."

Writing Powerful Memories

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Stephen King Author

Writing

"Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s."

Writing Kings Imagination

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Stephen King Author

Writing

"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work."

Writing Inspirational Procrastination

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Ruskin Bond Author

Writing

"The more you write, the better you will write! So - keep at it!"

Writing

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