Writing quotes

Writing

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

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Writing quotes (page 219 of 1537)

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Walker Percy Author, Novelist

Writing

"I sometimes think novelists write about sex in order to avoid boring themselves to death."

Thinking Writing Sex

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Umberto Eco Writer, Philosopher, Literary Critic

Writing

"When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer."

Writing World Book

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Ursula K. Le Guin Author, Poet, Essayist

Writing

"What's needed in this case is conscious and serious practice in hearing, and using, and being used by, other people's voices."

Writing Voice Practice

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Ursula K. Le Guin Author, Poet, Essayist

Writing

"There was one person who greatly and directly benefited my career--my agent Virginia Kidd. From 1968 to the late nineties she represented all my work, in every field except poetry. I could send her an utterly indescribable story, and she'd sell it to Playboy or the Harvard Law Review or Weird Tales or The New Yorker--she knew where to take it. She never told me what to write or not write, she never told me, That won't sell, and she never meddled with my prose."

Writing Careers Virginia

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Ursula K. Le Guin Author, Poet, Essayist

Writing

"Skill in writing frees you to write what you want to write. It may also show you what you want to write. Craft enables art."

Writing Art Skills

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Ursula K. Le Guin Author, Poet, Essayist

Writing

"If success in selling is my primary interest, I am not primarily a writer, but a salesperson. If I teach success in selling as the writer's primary objective, I am not teaching writing; I'm teaching, or pretending to teach, the production and marketing of a commodity."

Writing Teaching Marketing

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Ursula K. Le Guin Author, Poet, Essayist

Writing

"I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer."

Writing Fiction Preacher

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Ursula K. Le Guin Author, Poet, Essayist

Writing

"A story rises from the springs of creation, from the pure will to be; it tells itself; I takes its own course, finds its own way, its own words; and the writer's job is to be its medium."

Writing Jobs Spring

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Tabitha King Author

Writing

"Writing is only the frosting on my cake. Im whole without it."

Writing Whole Cake

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Sabina Murray Author and Screenwriter

Writing

"What does literature do for me? I think I solve problems in my writing. They may be my problems, but perhaps others share them, and in the process of working these through, I hope to entertain."

Thinking Writing Doe

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Saint Augustine Theologian, Philosopher

Writing

"For a sentence is not complete unless each word, once its syllables have been pronounced, gives way to make room for the next."

Writing Giving Zenith

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Said Sayrafiezadeh Author

Writing

"I don't feel any ethical dilemma when I write. In my memoir, I was able to write with candor about the two most difficult people in the world to write with candor about - mom and dad. Everything else is downhill from there."

Writing Mom Dad

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Yolanda Adams Singer, Songwriter

Writing

"When I write a song, it comes from the heart and is based on a specific experience. You can't really say that one experience is greater than another, because all of your experiences take you through life on this journey."

Writing Heart Song

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Tanith Lee Author

Writing

"If anyone ever wonders why there's nothing coming from me, it's not my fault. I'm doing the work. No, I haven't deteriorated or gone insane. Suddenly, I just can't get anything into print. And apparently I'm not alone in this. There are people of very high standing, authors who are having problems. So I have been told. In my own case, the more disturbing element is the editor-in-chief who said to me, "I think this book is terrific. It ought to be in print. I can't publish it -- I've been told I mustn't." The indication is that I'm not writing what people want to read, but I never did."

Thinking Writing Book

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Sam Smith Singer

Writing

"There were a lot of people who were willing to write a letter for me. Not because I was academically inclined, but because I worked hard."

People Writing Letters

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Taylor Swift Singer, Songwriter

Writing

"Spending a lot of time alone, gave me a lot of time to think. A lot of time to think gave me the time to write songs."

Thinking Writing Song

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Samuel Beckett Playwright, Novelist

Writing

"I did not want to write, but I had to resign myself to it in the end."

Writing Want Ends

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Essayist, Philosopher, Poet

Writing

"There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world."

Writing Book Reading

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Vincent Van Gogh Painter

Writing

"Seeing that I am so busily occupied with myself just now, I want to try to paint my self-portrait in writing."

Writing Trying Self

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Tennessee Williams Playwright

Writing

"The work of a writer, his continuing work, depends for breath of life on a certain privacy of heart."

Writing Heart Privacy

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