Writing quotes
30.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside writing — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"I was talking to Shonda Rhimes the other day and I said, "I. Do. Not. Know. How. You. Do. This." While we're writing episode 10, episode 6 is shooting, episode 3 is in the edit, and episode 2 is in its color session...You've got seven episodes in different parts! It's a wild, wild, wild ride, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was badass and amazing."
"I don't understand the iPhone. I just don't get it. Don't ya'll have to write serious emails throughout the day? How can you possibly manage detailed missives on a phone with no keys?"
"All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct."
"Roger Ebert was such a champion of underrepresented filmmakers. He was a very big deal to me. It shows the power of critics. People who write about film, like you, can really affect the confidence of a young filmmaker. He did that for me, so it was such a pleasure to have an opportunity to talk about Roger in the movie."
"I'm really changed by my research. This book ["This Changes Everything" ]is very different from what I set out to write."
"If you write a whole line of zeroes, it's still — nothing."
"By what he chooses to present and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values."
"You don't build for the way people live, but for the way they should live. I don't write about people as they are, but as they could be and should be."
"The art of writing is the art of doing what you think you're doing. This is not as simple as it sounds. It implies a very difficult undertaking: the necessity to think. And it implies the requirement to think out three separate, very hard problems: What is it you want to say? How are you going to say it? Have you really said it?"
"Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done."
"If he can give his readers no reason why they should read his book, except that the events happened to him, it is not a valid book."
"I write - and read - for the sake of the story... My basic test for any story is: 'Would I want to meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is this story an experience worth living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure of contemplating these characters an end itself?"
"It is a sin to write this."
"Even in dialogue, your own style rules your selection. Do not give yourself a blank check of this kind: 'I'll merely reproduce what I think a character like so-and-so would say.' You have to reproduce it in the way your literary premises dictate."
"The best, most natural dialogue is usually written as if the writer is listening to dictation. You might get stuck on any particular point and have to question yourself; but normally, dialogue writes itself."
"Holding onto negativity makes you sick, I strongly believe that. So I release negativity by writing."
"The American Dream is the largely unacknowledged screen in front of which all American writing plays itself out."
"Rise early. Write. Disappoint your sons. Read the newspaper. Go to bed early. Success."
"If you want to write good copy, you must be where the things are."
"It is a pity he did not write in pencil. As you have no doubt frequently observed, the impression usually goes through -- a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage."
