Writing quotes

Writing

30.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

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Writing quotes (page 52 of 1537)

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Stephen King Author

Writing

"There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line. It's tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don't think conceptually while I work on a first draft -- I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this."

Thinking Writing Ideas

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Stephen King Author

Writing

"Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life."

Thinking Writing Way

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Robert Stone Novelist

Writing

"When rewriting, move quickly. It's a little like cutting your own hair."

Writing Moving Cutting

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Steven Wright Comedian

Writing

"I have a paper cut from writing my suicide note. It's a start."

Writing Funny Suicide

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Russell Simmons Entrepreneur, Music Producer

Writing

"If you want to say something profound, writing from your heartbeat is different than writing from the loud voices you get from music. If they're rapping from noise, it's about robbing people. It's that simple."

Writing Simple Rap

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Octavia Butler Author, Novelist

Writing

"Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it."

Writing Frustration Profession

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Gabriel Garcia Marquez Novelist, Short Story Writer, Journalist

Writing

"In the end all books are written for your friends. The problem after writing One Hundred Years of Solitude was that now I no longer know whom of the millions of readers I am writing for; this upsets and inhibits me. It's like a million eyes are looking at you and you don't really know what they think."

Writing Book Eye

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F. Scott Fitzgerald Novelist

Writing

"An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards."

Writing Literature Generations

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Oscar Wilde Writer

Writing

"The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read."

Writing Differences Media

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Keanu Reeves Actor, Producer

Writing

"Letters are something from you. It's a different kind of intention than writing an e-mail."

Writing Different Letters

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Haruki Murakami Writer

Writing

"My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them, and how I felt when I did. Short stories are like guideposts to my heart."

Writing Heart Shadow

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Frank Smith Author

Writing

"Reading and writing don't inevitably go together. You can read without learning a thing about writing, grammar, or spelling, although, you certainly can't learn anything about writing, grammar, or spelling unless you read."

Writing Reading Education

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Ken Thompson Computer Scientist

Writing

"I think the major good idea in Unix was its clean and simple interface: open, close, read, and write."

Thinking Writing Simple

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George Russell Composer

Writing

"I don't just write music to esthetically satisfy somebody. The reason I write music is that I feel it's a vehicle or channel which leads to your true self, your essence."

Writing Self Music

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Gustave Flaubert Novelist

Writing

"I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within."

Writing Sound Funny Life

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James Joyce Novelist, Poet

Writing

"Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality."

Writing Fantastic Revolt

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James Joyce Novelist, Poet

Writing

"My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis."

Men Writing Country

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Freddie Mercury Musician, Singer

Writing

"I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things. For example, when we're backstage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begins, it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddy [sic] Mercury who seemed to love, relish in the love and adoration from the crowd, which is something I totally admire and envy."

Writing Light Reading

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Frederic Chopin Composer

Writing

"It's a huge Carthusian monastery, stuck down between rocks and sea, where you may imagine me, without white gloves or hair curling, as pale as ever, in a cell with such doors as Paris never had for gates. The cell is the shape of a tall coffin, with an enormous dusty vaulting, a small window... Bach, my scrawls and waste paper - silence - you could scream - there would still be silence. Indeed, I write to you from a strange place."

Writing White Paris

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Mark Twain Writer, Humorist

Writing

"The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say."

Writing Want Satisfaction

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Writing quotes (page 52 of 1537)