"Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications."
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Writing quotes
Writing
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Writing quotes (page 43 of 1537)
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"Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes.... The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms."
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"No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons."
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"Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire."
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"There has never been a greater illusion than fear. Fear exists only whilst you believe in it - whilst you fear it. So...stop believing, stop fearing. Set up a shadow inventory, write down all your fears and set out on your warrior path. Make this your life purpose and gold will be smelt from your terror."
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"Write down the most important things you have to do tomorrow. Now, number them in the order of their true importance. The first thing tomorrow morning, start working on an item Number 1, and stay with it until completed. Then take item Number 2 the same way. Then Number 3, and so on. Don't worry if you don't complete everything on the schedule. At least you will have completed the most important projects before getting to the less important ones."
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"One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one's own flesh in the inkpot, each time one dips one's pen."
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"I spend a lot of time preparing. I think a lot about what I want to do. I have prep books, little notebooks in which I write everything down before a sitting. Otherwise I would forget my ideas."
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"Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful."
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"If your writing doesn`t keep you up at night, it won`t keep anyone else up either"."
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"A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life. He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in."
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"Make your copy straightforward to read, understand and use. Use easy words; those that are used for everyday speech. Use phrases that are not too imprecise and very understandable. Do not be too stuffy; remove pompous words and substitute them with plain words. Minimize complicated gimmicks and constructions. If you can't give the data directly and briefly, you must consider writing the copy again."
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"The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself."
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"I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, 'You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through.' So I said, 'I'll beat my head against that wall.'"
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"In our dreams (writes Coleridge) images represent the sensations we think they cause; we do not feel horror because we are threatened by a sphinx; we dream of a sphinx in order to explain the horror we feel."
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"Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted."
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"When you're trying to create a career as a writer, a little delusional thinking goes a long way."
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"In writing, the point is not to manifest or exalt the act of writing, nor is it to pin a subject within language; it is, rather, a question of creating a space into which the writing subject constantly disappears."
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"I am but a small pencil in the hand of a writing God"
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"Writing has been an important exercise to clarify what I believe, what I see, what I care about, what my deepest values are. The process of converting a jumble of thoughts into coherent sentences makes you ask tougher questions."
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