"There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas."
Writing quotes
Writing
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Writing quotes (page 62 of 1537)
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"Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper."
"If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced that there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes but by no means always find the way to do it."
"A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."
"Reading is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual."
"Writers are the engineers of human souls."
"While I was writing Wild Swans I thought the famine was the result of economic mismanagement but during the research I realised that it was something more sinister."
"Writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage."
"Rhythm is one of the most powerful of pleasures, and when we feel a pleasurable rhythm we hope it will continue. When it does, it grows sweeter."
"He was always saying, 'I wonder what Paul is doing.' When John and I were together, and this is about a week or two before our relationship ended, I remember him saying, 'Do you think I should write with Paul again?' I said, 'Absolutely. You should because you want to. The two of you as solo performers are good, but together you can't be beaten."
"The pen is the tongue of the soul; as are the thoughts engendered there, so will be the things written."
"The only people who can be excused for letting a bad book loose on the world are the poor devils who have to write for a living."
"In a longish life as a professional writer, I have heard a thousand masterpieces talked out over bars, restaurant tables and love seats. I have never seen one of them in print. Books must be written, not talked."
"See, I'm not the type of writer that has 400 songs in a suitcase someplace on the shelf. I'm sort of a rise-to-the-occasion-type of writer, so when I know I'm going to record, I get in the mood to write."
"If you wouldn't write it and sign it, don't say it."
"Just concentrate on the performers. Make sure you get the performers, and that's it. That's all we need to do." And I was thinking, "Well what if you do both? Of course the performance is important, the writing is really important. But what if you could have the perfect marriage of making it look really slick as well?" I think that's kind of what I tried to develop as a style, and Spaced was the first TV show I did where all the elements came together."
"At night, never go to bed without knowing what you'll write tomorrow."
"It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way."
"If he wrote it, he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them."
"A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book."