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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"The Chinese traditionally have revered age and longevity - I have one and hope for the other! - so, in Taipei, a city-hub for global Chinese who dis-identify with the People's Republic of China's construction of a Communist nationalist Chineseness, I called on the Chinese muse of writing to witness my emergence out of the academic woods."
"Wouldn't that be wonderful if I could do that? And that way, I could walk with the muse, rather than walk without her. The novel would write itself."
"I was writing poems as I was walking. I was able to take that restlessness, that nomadic distraction, and use that distraction in the world and turn that distraction into observations and then into poems."
"Even after the mothering dropped because my son grew up, the writing - the muse - was always the third wheel, the lowest on the priority list."
"This distraction is what one wants, which is very, very bad for the muse, because the muse hates not being in the line of sight. It's no longer an external conflict, like, oh, I have all these demands and I don't like them. The split is in the self. This may explain why, when I was in Santa Barbara before I went to Singapore and then now to Hong Kong, there was a writing moment when I was writing a poem a day. I had never done that before."
"I can't imagine otherwise - I guess Virginia Woolf could write wonderful novels where the women never have sex, and her novels work. But for me, I don't think I could write a plot without sex happening somewhere."
"After Fifty Shades of Grey, I think my writing is pretty tame, isn't it?"
"I had a couple of Asian readers and other folks tell me, "Oh, you have a lot of sex in your writing.""
"In publishing books and winning awards, it's like you've enjoyed this meal, you know, two months ago. How long can you be nourished by thinking about it? You've already ingested it, and you've excreted it, and that was two months ago. You had this fabulous meal. It's not going to keep you satiated today. You have to go out and get your next meal. For me, that's writing. I have to go out and hunt my next meal."
"Just because suddenly you have a sabbatical doesn't mean that the writing occasion comes to you."
"If I could write a novel while I'm walking, I probably would."
"A piece of creative writing, like a day-dream, is a continuation of, and a substitute for, what was once the play of childhood."
"Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever."
"I always read what I write out loud, and I did that long before any radio thing. My editor finds that unusual."
"Writing is the only thing in my life that doesn't get easier. It just doesn't."
"I'm pretty fortunate that I'm in the films I'm in largely because the directors have asked me to be in them. I'd love to do more of them, but the writing and historical stuff I'll probably always do."
"Sitting with a deck of cards in your hand all day is an obsession. Visiting print shops and bookstores and libraries is an obsession. And writing about this is an obsession. I think, in general, most collectors are obsessed. I think the only form of a rationalized greed is when you're collecting something you are supposedly serious about."
"I used to wish I could write songs like the others - and I've tried but I just can't. I get the words all right, but whenever I think of a tune and sing it to the others they always say 'Yeah, it always sounds like such a thing' and when they point it out I see what they mean. But I did get a part credit as a composer on one - it was called What Goes On."
"I write poetry. It comes naturally to me, but from a technical point of view it forces me to pay close attention to language and to scan."
"Hollywood called just as I crested thirty. My novels did not and still do not interest them, but my writing ability did."
