Writing quotes

Writing

30.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

30.7K quotes

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Writing quotes (page 19 of 1537)

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Writing

"Modern literary theory sees a similarity between walking and writing that I find persuasive: words inscribe a text in the same way that a walk inscribes space. In The practicse of Everyday Life, Michel de Certeau writes, 'The act of walking is a process of appropriation of the topographical system on the part of the pedestrian; it is a special acting-out of the place...and it implies relations among differentiated positions.' I think this is a fancy way of saying that writing is one way of making the world our own, and that walking is another."

Thinking Writing Literary Theory
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Joe Wright Film Director
Writing

"I think my dyslexia was a vital part of my development because my inability to read and write meant that I had to find knowledge elsewhere so I looked to the cinema."

Thinking Writing Inability
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Ernest Hemingway Novelist
Writing

"It was a pleasant cafe, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old water-proof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write."

Writing Coffee Notebook
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Clara Barton Nurse, Activist
Writing

"My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel--not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses."

Men Writing Home
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Writing

"If we can write or sing or create in some way, even when we are dealing with difficulties or pain, then it becomes something bigger than ourselves — and often beautiful."

Writing Beautiful Pain
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Billy Wilder Film Director, Screenwriter
Writing

"Eighty percent of a picture is writing, the other twenty percent is the execution, such as having the camera on the right spot and being able to afford to have good actors in all parts."

Writing Actors Able
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August Wilson Playwright, Screenwriter
Writing

"When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking."

Writing Art Character
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Umberto Eco Writer, Philosopher, Literary Critic
Writing

"The thought that all experience will be lost at the moment of my death makes me feel pain and fear... What a waste, decades spent building up experience, only to throw it all away... We remedy this sadness by working. For example, by writing, painting, or building cities."

Writing Pain Sadness
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Russell Baker Writer
Writing

"The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any."

Writing Real Work
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Nancy Reagan Political Figure, First Lady
Writing

"I realized how valuable the art and practice of writing letters are, and how important it is to remind people of what a treasure letters--handwritten letters--can be. In our throwaway era of quick phone calls, faxes, and email, it's all to easy never to find the time to write letters. That's a great pity--for historians and the rest of us."

Writing Art Phones
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Louisa May Alcott Novelist, Poet
Writing

"I want to do something splendid… Something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead… I think I shall write books."

Thinking Writing Book
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Eminem Rapper, songwriter, record producer
Writing

"The writing process, the way I go about it is I do whatever the beat feels like, whatever the beat is telling me to do. Usually when the beat comes on, I think of a hook or the subject I want to rap about almost instantly. Within four, eight bars of it playing I'm just like, 'Oh, OK. This is what I wanna do'."

Thinking Writing Rap
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