Writing

Susan Sontag Essayist, Critic, Activist

Writing

"Talking like touching. Writing like punching somebody."

Writing Talking Touching

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Susan Sontag Essayist, Critic, Activist

Writing

"To make your life being a writer, it's an auto-slavery ... you are both the slave and the task-master."

Writing Tasks Slavery

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Susan Sontag Essayist, Critic, Activist

Writing

"There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work."

Writing Taken Body

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Susan Sontag Essayist, Critic, Activist

Writing

"Most writers I know have switched to word processors. I haven't but I'm very curious about why people like it so much. I think it has something to do with the fact that at last writing, which has been such an old-fashioned, artisanal activity, even on a typewriter, has now entered the central domain of modern experience which is that of making copies, being involved in the world of duplicates and machine-mediated activities."

Thinking Writing Typewriters

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Sylvester Stallone Actor, Filmmaker

Writing

"Nothing's harder than writing. There's no comparison. With directing, you can bounce a lot of ideas around. There's tremendous support - you've got editors and sound mixers. With writing, it's all you, and it's just crippling when people tear up your pages."

Writing Editors Support You

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Sylvester Stallone Actor, Filmmaker

Writing

"To me, the most perfect screenplay ever written will be one word, when you finally reduce it down to that. Until then, writing will be an imperfect form of communication."

Writing Perfect Communication

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Russell Banks Novelist

Writing

"You go out into the world, you read everything you can read, you imitate the things you love, and you learn how hard it is to do. Eventually, you learn your own vision of the world, you learn your own voice and how to hear it, and you learn to write your own work. Writers today have as many opportunities as my generation did, but they don't see the examples as clearly as we did."

Writing Opportunity Vision

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Rumi Poet, Philosopher

Writing

"Your name is upon my tongue your image is in my sight your memory is in my heart where can I send these words that I write ?"

Writing Memories Grief

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Ryan Adams Musician, Singer-songwriter

Writing

"There are times when I want to be plainspoken about my feelings in a song. But there are other times when it's really good to try and get my head around different kinds of song structures, or maybe I might get turned on by trying to write a song that would fit in this one scene in a movie. And by the end of all this, you just end up with a bunch of different ideas. And songs are really just ideas."

Writing Ideas Song

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Sylvia Plath Poet, Novelist

Writing

"Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing, which remark I guess shows I still don't have a pure motive (O it's-such-fun-I-just-can't-stop-who-cares-if-it's-published-or-read) about writing."

Writing Fun Who Cares

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Steve Jordan Musician

Writing

"Out of frustration, you do drugs when you can't write. On occasion that might work, but usually what happens is that once you've had on drink, you just want another drink."

Writing Drug Frustration

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Shel Silverstein Poet, Songwriter, Author

Writing

"When I am gone what will you do? Who will write and draw for you? Someone smarter--someone new? Someone better--maybe YOU!"

Writing Gone Draws

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Ray Martin Television Presenter, Journalist

Writing

"I don't love it. I write better than I used to write, I think better than I used to think, and I've got enough experience to balance things up. But I don't like the physical side of getting older and I don't like forgetting things. If I had a choice, I'd take Peter Pan pills and stay young forever."

Thinking Writing Choices

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Octavia Butler Author, Novelist

Writing

"No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly."

Writing Long Comeback

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Octavia Butler Author, Novelist

Writing

"And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing."

Writing Littles Toilets

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L. Frank Baum Author

Writing

"When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children."

Writing Children Book

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J. D. Salinger Novelist, Short Story Writer

Writing

"I love to write and I assure you I write regularly... But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it."

Writing Want Pleasure

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J. D. Salinger Novelist, Short Story Writer

Writing

"Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion."

Writing Heard Euphemism

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J. D. Salinger Novelist, Short Story Writer

Writing

"You think of the book you'd most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it."

Writing Book Reading

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J. K. Rowling Novelist, Screenwriter

Writing

"There is no part of me that feels that I represented myself as your children’s babysitter or their teacher. I was always, I think, completely honest. I’m a writer, and I will write what I want to write."

Writing Children Teacher

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