Writing quotes
30.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"[Jack] Kerouac was writing fiction. What he did when he wrote about me...he made me out with Russian Countesses and Swiss accounts and other things I didn't have or didn't happen and so on."
"O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame."
"Will Fortune never come with both hands full, But write her fair words still in foulest terms?"
"Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.... [W]hat can we bequeath, Save our deposed bodies to the ground?... [N]othing can we call our own, but death... [L]et us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings: - How some have been depos'd, some slain in war; Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd."
"Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears Moist it again, and frame some feeling line That may discover such integrity."
"I like myself better when I'm writing regularly. ... I was influenced a lot by those around me-there was a lot of singing that went on in the cotton fields. ... I'm a country songwriter and we write cry-in-your-beer songs. That's what we do. Something that you can slow dance to...I never gave up on country music because I knew what I was doing was not that bad. ... Most of the stuff I've read about me has been true."
"I try not get too self-aware when writing lyrics."
"A lot of artists write about the same things their whole career."
"It would get really alienating, to have my face be the face of a cause. So much just comes down to the songs. I just want to give us the opportunity to write great songs. Even our work in Haiti is limited by how good our songs are. We just need to get rid of as much of the bullshit as possible, so we can have a life, so we have something to write about."
"I am sorry to have made such a long speech, but I did not have time to write a shorter one."
"Perfecting and selling your writing is a lifelong task. If you are a persistent writer, you can expect your abilities to improve with time. Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."
"I have not always been wrong. History will bear me out, particularly as I shall write that history myself."
"Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge. Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words when short are best of all."
"I feel devoutly thankful to have been born fond of writing."
"In all the twelve years I was at school no one ever succeeded in making me write a Latin verse or learn any Greek except the alphabet."
"It helps to write down half a dozen things which are worrying me. Two of them, say, disappear; about two of them nothing can be done, so it's no use worrying; and two perhaps can be settled."
"Men will forgive a man anything except bad prose."
"Writing ... it begins as an amusement, then it becomes a mistress, then a master, and finally a tyrant."
"It's a wonderful thing to be able to create your own world whenever you want to. Writing is very pleasurable, very seductive, and very therapeutic. Time passes very fast when I'm writing-really fast. I'm puzzling over something, and time just flies by. It's an exhilarating feeling. How bad can it be? It's sitting alone with fictional characters. You're escaping from the world in your own way and that's fine. Why not?"
"I loathed every day and regret every day I spent in school. I like to be taught to read and write and add and then be left alone."
