"Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before. Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories - each time in a new disguise - maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen."
Writing quotes
Writing
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Writing quotes (page 22 of 1537)
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"Rest and be kind, you don't have to prove anything"
"If somebody writes a great poem, people don't run around applauding the pencil, saying 'Oh, what a great pencil'...I'm a pencil in God's hands."
"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."
"If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul."
"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."
"Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man."
"Write something insightful. Say Morgan Freeman said it. Win at internet."
"The learned fool writes his nonsense in better language than the unlearned, but it is still nonsense."
"The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire."
"Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow."
"Don't be 'a writer'. Be writing."
"Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of our waking hours communicating. But consider this: You've spent years learning how to read and write, years learning how to speak. But what about listening?"
"Perhaps we have failed as human beings. Perhaps we have embarrassed ourselves to the natural world. We have been rigorous and willful in all the wrong ways. But it doesn't have to be this way. Maybe you don't want to deal with (marching), the permanent marker and poster board. But try something else. Carry someone's groceries. Chat with the custodian in your office building. Donate blood. Live in Rwanda for a year. Write letters to the Department of Buildings. Learn to knit. It is only going to get better from here on out."
"On December 12, 1829, Paganini wrote his friend Germi: "The variations I've composed on the graceful Neapolitan ditty, 'Oh Mamma, Mama Cara,' outshine everything. I can't describe it!" He was writing from Karlsruhe, in the midst of his triumphal tour through Germany. That letter marks the earliest known mention of the variations that would become famous as "The Carnival of Venice." At the time of his letter, Paganini had already performed the piece in at least four concerts. From then on, it would be one of his most popular compositions."
"Writing is like sausage making in my view; you'll all be happier in the end if you just eat the final product without knowing what's gone into it."
"The church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors.... For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Welcome atheism! Welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by these Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together have done!"
"Every writer I know has trouble writing."
"Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable."
"I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose."