Writing

W. Somerset Maugham Novelist, Playwright

Writing

"A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident."

Writing Effort Style

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Washington Irving Author

Writing

"I am always at a loss at how much to believe of my own stories."

Believe Writing Loss

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Washington Irving Author

Writing

"My father died and left me his blessing and his business. His blessing brought no money into my pocket, and as to his business, it soon deserted me, for I was busy writing poetry, and could not attend to law, and my clients, though they had great respect for my talents, had no faith in a poetical attorney."

Writing Father Blessing

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Willa Cather Novelist, Short Story Writer

Writing

"Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand - a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods - or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values."

Writing Art Breakfast Food

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William Faulkner Novelist, Poet, Playwright

Writing

"the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat"

Writing Heart Agony

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William Faulkner Novelist, Poet, Playwright

Writing

"I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing."

Writing Trying Novelists

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Umberto Eco Writer, Philosopher, Literary Critic

Writing

"When the poet is in love, he is incapable of writing poetry on love. He has to write when he remembers that he was in love."

Writing Remember Poet

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Victor Hugo Novelist, Poet

Writing

"Every man is a book in which God himself writes."

Men Writing Book

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Tennessee Williams Playwright

Writing

"I can't expose a human weakness on the stage unless I know it through having it myself."

Writing Weakness Theatre

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Virginia Woolf Novelist

Writing

"I am writing to a rhythm and not to a plot."

Writing Plot Rhythm

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Virginia Woolf Novelist

Writing

"I mean it's the writing, not the being read, that excites me."

Writing Joy

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Virginia Woolf Novelist

Writing

"As I grow old I hate the writing of letters more and more, and like getting them better and better."

Writing Hate Letters

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Red Smith Sportswriter

Writing

"In my later years I have sought to become simpler, straighter and purer in my handling of the language. I've had many writing heroes, writers who have influenced me. Of the ones still alive, I can think of E.B. White. I certainly admire the pure, crystal stream of his prose. When I was very young as a sportswriter I knowingly and unashamedly imitated others. I had a series of heroes who would delight me for a while and I'd imitate them--Damon Runyon, Westbrook Pegler, Joe Williams."

Writing Sports Hero

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Thomas Merton Writer, Monk

Writing

"If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead."

Writing Wisdom Money

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Toni Morrison Novelist, Essayist

Writing

"Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet."

Thinking Writing Sweet

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Toni Morrison Novelist, Essayist

Writing

"People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever."

People Writing Want

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Trey Parker Animator, Writer, Director

Writing

"The story of Jesus makes no sense to me. God sent his only son. Why could God only have one son and why would he have to die? It's just bad writing, really. And it's really terrible in about the second act."

Writing Jesus Son

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Seth Godin Author, Entrepreneur

Writing

"The best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out. Three years to build a reputation, build a permission asset, build a blog, build a following, build credibility and build the connections you'll need later."

Writing Years Book

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Sigmund Freud Neurologist, Psychoanalyst

Writing

"Writing was in its origin, the voice of an absent person."

Writing Voice Persons

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Robert A. Heinlein Science Fiction Author

Writing

"There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick."

Writing Way Rooms

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