Writing quotes

Writing

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

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Writing quotes (page 220 of 1537)

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"The task of an author is, either to teach what is not known, or to recommend known truths by his manner of adorning them; either to let new light in upon the mind, and open new scenes to the prospect, or to vary the dress and situation of common objects, so as to give them fresh grace and more powerful attractions, to spread such flowers over the regions through which the intellect has already made its progress, as may tempt it to return, and take a second view of things hastily passed over, or negligently regarded."

Writing Powerful Flower

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"The art of the writer, like that of the player, is attained by slow degrees. The power of distinguishing and discriminating comick characters, or of filling tragedy with poetical images, must be the gift of nature, which no instruction nor labour can supply; but the art of dramatick disposition, the contexture of the scenes, the involution of the plot, the expedients of suspension, and the strategems of surprise, are to be learned by practice."

Writing Art Character

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Writing

"..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it."

Writing Different Praise

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Randall Wallace Screenwriter, Producer

Writing

"I love writing. I've always been drawn to that and felt a particular joy in it - like the phrase in Chariots of Fire: "God made me fast and when I run I feel his pleasure." God gave me a love of writing and (I knew) to do it I would feel God's pleasure."

Writing Running Fire

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Viola Davis Actress, Producer

Writing

"We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age."

Writing Age Escaping

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Virginia Woolf Novelist

Writing

"Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts."

Writing Greatness Aunt

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Terry Pratchett Author

Writing

"Rings try to find their way back to their owner. Someone ought to write a book about it."

Writing Book Trying

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"Don’t try to write a novel. Write short stories and then figure out how to connect them."

Writing Trying Stories

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"Remember, with writing, what you’re looking for is just one person to come up and tell you, 'I love you for what you do.'"

Writing Love You Remember

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"You've got to love libraries. You've got to love books. You've got to love poetry. You've got to love everything about literature. Then, you can pick the one thing you love most and write about it."

Writing Book Library

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"If you write a hundred short stories and they're all bad, that doesn't mean you've failed. You fail only if you stop writing."

Writing Mean Stories

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do-and they don’t. They have prejudices."

Writing Teacher College

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"Melt all the guns, I thought, break the knives, burn the guillotines-and the malicious will still write letters that kill."

Writing Gun Knives

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"A day without writing was a little death."

Writing Littles

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"When I started writing seriously, I made the major discovery of my life - that I am right and everybody else is wrong if they disagree with me. What a great thing to learn: Don't listen to anyone else, and always go your own way."

Writing Way Discovery

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"When you go home tonight, make a list of the people who are impediments, who don't believe in you, and call them up and tell them, 'Get the hell out of my life.' You don't need them. Writing is tough enough without having people around you who contribute to a writer's insecurity."

Believe Writing Home

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"If you're living in your time, you cannot help but to write about the things that are important."

Writing Important Helping

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"I believe in creative failing - to contine to write poems that fail and fail and fail until a day comes when you've got a thousand poems behind you and you're relaxed and you finally write a good poem."

Believe Writing Creative

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"Science fiction is a great way to pretend you are writing about the future when in reality you are attacking the recent past and the present. You can criticize communists, racists, fascists or any other clear and present danger, and they can't imagine you are writing about them."

Writing Past Reality

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Ray Bradbury Author

Writing

"Sometimes you have intuitive insight about how you think things are going to be, and you write that. Other times you fantasize completely, which has nothing to do with predicting the future."

Thinking Writing Sometimes

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Writing quotes (page 220 of 1537)