"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Writing quotes
Writing
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Writing quotes (page 30 of 1537)
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"When I came out of service, the first couple of releases didn't really hit so I just took a little hiatus and sat down to see what was happening. I just glued my ears to the radio and then I started writing - the first hit record that came out was "Everybody Loves a Winner."
"If you start with a bang, you won't end with a whimper."
"You can't try to do things; you simply must do them."
"Write a lot and hit the streets. A writer who doesn't keep up with what's out there ain't gonna be out there."
"Don't say you don't know! It's because of Kim. Meaning there's no photo that I would have put up by myself, or next to one of my smarty friends, that would have got that amount of likes. So now you take this photo that has that amount of likes, and it has a flower wall from the same guy who does the Lanvin shows, and it has a couture Givenchy dress and Givenchy tuxedo in it. That's the point. Now the thing that is the most popular is also communicating the highest level of creativity. The concept of Kimye has more cultural significance than what Page Six could write."
"I have the right ideas, but my words are too... complicated. I need to simplify them, so that people won't get lost in the dark when they see and hear them. I want them to shine like beacons of light in a world of overly complicated darkness. One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple."
"There is no nobler chore in the craft of writing than holding up the mirror of reality and turning it slightly, so we have a new and different perception of the commonplace, the everyday, the 'normal,' the obvious. People are reflected in the glass. The fantasy situation into which you thrust them is the mirror itself. And what we are shown should illuminate and alter our perception of the world around us. Failing that, you have failed totally."
"People are always asking me what my lyrics mean. Does it mean this, does it mean that, that's all anybody wants to know. F**k them, darling. I say what any decent poet would say if you dared ask him to analyze his work: If you see it, dear, then it's there. ... I think my melodies are superior to my lyrics. ... I was never too keen on the British music press. They've called us a supermarket hype, and they used to suggest that we didn't write our own songs."
"I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest."
"I do like to write but I also like to get and out and play. I am losing track of all the Cooper versions that I do - I have one for Iceland, different one over here."
"Your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out."
"When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do."
"Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail."
"If you can make music with someone you don't need words. If you wish to be a writer, write."
"In order to write about life first you must live it."
"Words are the physicians of a mind diseased."
"Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains."
"There's no reason why you can't say "August Wilson, playwright" even though all of my work, every single play, is about black Americans, about black American culture, about the black experience in America. I write about the black experience of men, or I write about black folks. That's who I am. In the same manner that Chekhov wrote about the Russians, I write about blacks. I couldn't do anything else. I wouldn't do anything else."
"By writing at the instant, the very heartbeat of life is caught."