Writing Quotes (Page 336)

Malcolm Gladwell Journalist, Author

Writing

"Nothing frustrates me more than someone who reads something of mine or anyone else's and says, angrily, 'I don't buy it.' Why are they angry? Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head—even if in the end you conclude that someone else's head is not a place you'd really like to be."

Thinking Writing Giving

Read quote 3 likes

Malcolm Gladwell Journalist, Author

Writing

"My writing model is my mother, who is a writer as well. She always valued clarity and simplicity above all else. If someone doesn't understand what you're writing, then everything else you do is superfluous. Irrelevant. If any thoughtful, curious reader finds what I do impenetrable, I've failed."

Writing Mother Thoughtful

Read quote 3 likes

Malcolm Gladwell Journalist, Author

Writing

"When writing, you can't break physical rules. You can't have people come back from the dead. That's cheating. I am a kind of narrative fundamentalist in many ways."

People Writing Cheating

Read quote 3 likes

Malcolm Gladwell Journalist, Author

Writing

"My highest compliment is when someone comes up to me to say, "My 14-year-old daughter, or my 12-year-old son read your book and loved it." I cannot conceive of a greater compliment than that - to write something that as an adult I find satisfying, but also that manages to reach a curious 13- or 14-year-old."

Writing Book Daughter

Read quote 3 likes

Malcolm Gladwell Journalist, Author

Writing

"So long as the stereotype is used as a way of understanding how to fix the problem as opposed to demonizing a people or writing them off, then I think it's OK."

Thinking Writing Long

Read quote 3 likes

Malcolm Gladwell Journalist, Author

Writing

"When people reflexively write checks to institutions that have billions of dollars in the bank, they are essentially committing a moral crime. Your money could do good in this world and you're choosing instead to waste it. People have to do a better job of that. You've got to find places where your money's going to do some good and direct your dollars towards that institution."

People Writing World

Read quote 3 likes

Malcolm Gladwell Journalist, Author

Writing

"As a writer, I know that - you write a first draft and then put it in a drawer. The longer I can put it in a drawer, the better off I am. So I structure my writing so that things can sit."

Writing Firsts Drawers

Read quote 3 likes

Larry Ellison Businessman

Writing

"When you write a program for Android, you use the Oracle Java tools for everything, and at the very end, you push a button and say, Convert this to Android format."

Writing Tools Buttons

Read quote 3 likes

Larry Holmes Boxer

Writing

"I don't like Larry Merchant. He thinks he knows everything about a sport that he was never in. He walks around with papers and studies what he writes, he just pisses you off."

Thinking Writing Sports

Read quote 3 likes

Karl Kraus Playwright, Journalist

Writing

"Most critics write critiques which are by the authors they write critiques about. That would not be so bad, but then most authorswrite works which are by the critics who write critiques about them."

Writing Criticism Critics

Read quote 3 likes

Jack Johnson Musician

Writing

"The music brings me confidence and freedom. It's also the thing that can make me feel the most vulnerable. Once I finish writing all the songs for an album, once I actually record them, that whole process is usually easy and enjoyable. The part where I feel the most vulnerable is when it's all finished, I can make no more changes, I've turned it in, and there's no going back. All of a sudden I hear the songs in a different way; that's when I feel vulnerable."

Writing Song Different

Read quote 3 likes

Jack Johnson Musician

Writing

"Sometimes I'll write a song. When I've gone through something really hard in my life, sometimes it's other people's music. Other times it's actually writing the songs and getting out of mind and into the song."

People Writing Song

Read quote 3 likes

Jack Johnson Musician

Writing

"Sometimes I just start humming something, find a melody I like a lot, and if it sticks around for a couple days, a few words will lock themselves into place. I might just get the first line. Then words just keep falling into the syllables. The choruses kind of write themselves and verses I have to work at a little bit."

Writing Fall Couple

Read quote 3 likes

Jack Johnson Musician

Writing

"I can never tell what's going to end up being on an album until it's all finished. I'm reading the news everyday, and sometimes I just have to be away from it. And that ends up writing the songs for me a little bit."

Writing Song Reading

Read quote 3 likes

Jack Kerouac Novelist, Poet

Writing

"You don't realize what a strain it is on the nerves to write or think-of-writing all day long, and to sleep full of nervous dreams, and to wake up not knowing who one is: this all stems from anxiety about finishing the book, about time 'growing short', etc., and the perpetual strain of invention."

Writing Book Dream

Read quote 3 likes

Jack Kerouac Novelist, Poet

Writing

"The words are clear as in the reflection of the world on the water. Therefore write the Word at once, everywhere, from now till your hand is paralyzed, for THERE will be your work for GOD, since you can not work for God in other ways, and would not, & don't know how, or bend that way, from habit, & from talent in the use & signification & arrangement of the Word."

Writing Hands Reflection

Read quote 3 likes

Jack Kerouac Novelist, Poet

Writing

"Oftentimes an originator of new language forms is called 'pretentious' by jealous talents. But it ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it."

Writing Way Jealous

Read quote 3 likes

Jack Kerouac Novelist, Poet

Writing

"Rather, I think one should write, as nearly as possible, as if he were the first person on earth and was humbly and sincerly putting on paper that which he saw and experienced and loved and lost; what his passing thoughts were and his sorrows and desires."

Thinking Writing Sorrow

Read quote 3 likes

Jack Kerouac Novelist, Poet

Writing

"Hell man, I know very well you didn't come to me only to want to become a writer, and after all what do I really know about it except that you've got to stick to it with the energy of a benny addict."

Men Writing Energy

Read quote 3 likes

Jack Kerouac Novelist, Poet

Writing

"Because anybody can write, but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented a new form of writing and her imitators are just "talents.""

Writing Feelings Judging

Read quote 3 likes

Writing

Topics related to Writing

Writing quotes (page 336 of 1537)