Top 100 Draft Quotes
#1. We created a new kind of agency ... We had to retrain our people. But the corporations that will be successful will be those that are willing to change.
Howard Draft
#2. I think Hillary Clinton is a militarist. She is a political coward. The interesting thing about Hilary Clinton, like Bill Clinton dodging the draft, he never touched the Pentagon - she is in the same position.
Ralph Nader
#3. Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians.
Marie Colvin
#4. Hardly anything is as exciting or as diverse, as strong a confirmation of life and hope and the universe's urge towards creativity, as a lively compost heap or the first draft of a novel.
Margaret Simons
#5. Thank you for being open to another more workable draft of me. It affected me profoundly.
Mary-Louise Parker
#6. I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.
Colm Toibin
#8. I see myself as a first-draft writer, so when I sit down to write something, the first draft is usually pretty close to the end draft. There will be some tweaks along the way, but it's not like I'll go 20 pages and throw it out and start again.
Noah Hawley
#9. What your opponent wants you to think is useful data in figuring out what they think. So get the early draft, okay?
James S.A. Corey
#10. Israel has a people's army and a draft and therefore they should be considered legitimate targets. They are part of the occupying power, and Palestinians consider them targets for suicide bombers as well as other means.
Mohamed Elmasry
#11. New Yorkers should know that no one in the Administration, at the Department of Defense, or at the Selective Service System is advocating the reinstatement of the mandatory draft in any form.
Jim Walsh
#12. I once read Updike after writing a first draft, and I wanted to put my own book on the fire. I've since learned to read utter crap while I'm writing: pulp is the thing.
John Niven
#13. I always do my draft in long hand because even the ink is part of the flow.
Martin Amis
#14. My mom was sarcastic about men. She would tell me Adam was the rough draft and Eve was the final product. She was a feminist minister, an earth mom who wore a bra only on Sundays.
Daphne Zuniga
#15. I wrote the first draft of 'Madame Bovary' without studying the previous translations, although I gathered them and took the occasional peek.
Lydia Davis
#16. We have written a draft of the script in every calendar year since [2010]. Quite honestly. Our Deadpool file is ... full, to capacity.
Paul Wernick
#17. With my first book, I was hired to write a draft of the script. I was so young and less confident. They put me through seven or eight drafts and it was just getting worse and worse, and then the film was never made.
Emma Donoghue
#18. Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it."
"Are you saying we shouldn't hope?"
"I'm saying we should remove the carrot and walk forward with our eyes open!
Margaret Weis
#19. This beer is good for you. This is draft beer. Stick with the beer. Let's go and beat this guy up and come back and drink some more beer.
Ernest Hemingway,
#20. I am somebody who usually writes out the rough draft in longhand. Then I type it into the computer, and that is where I do my editing. I find that if I write it on the computer, I go too quick. So I like getting that first draft out and then typing it in; you are less self-conscious about it.
Barack Obama
#21. The first draft doesn't have to be perfect, but it does have to be written!
Heather Robinson
#22. When I'm my own editor, there's very little difference between the first draft and the final. I write what feels right to begin with. I rarely make any major changes.
Len Wein
#23. This is all you have to do. Sit down once a day to the novel and start working without internal criticism, without debilitating expectations, without the need to look at your words as if they were already printed and bound. The beginning is only a draft. Drafts are imperfect by definition.
Walter Mosley
#24. One of the things I noticed more in this draft than in any recent drafts was the importance of the character issue. Players who had baggage, like Justice, fell much farther than his talent dictated. But a lot of coaches didn't want to take the chance.
Ron Jaworski
#25. Of course one never knows in draft if it's going to turn out, even with my age and experience.
Rumer Godden
#26. Even in forgetting there is an aspect of recollection, a faded few moments of wispy consciousness clung like webs in high-vaulted chambers, moving ever so lightly with the draft.
Jeffrey Panzer
#27. I was terrified of the Vietnam War when I was 13. I thought I was going. The draft was such an ominous thing, I felt as if it was going to trickle down to me.
Dylan McDermott
#28. Getting that first draft out is a horribly hard grind, but that (perversely) is where the joy of it lies.
Jonathan Stroud
#29. I hated the draft, but at the same time, it's something that made every American take war seriously.
Tim O'Brien
#30. What do you do when you get a draft notice and you think a war is wrong? And I struggled with that for months prior to my being inducted into the army, and I'm still struggling with it, 40 years later.
Tim O'Brien
#31. We may need to change the way we think. As in Israel, I think there should be a mandatory draft, where you go away for the service of your country for three years.
Steven Tyler
#32. The budget acknowledges the importance of maintaining our ports and waterways to encourage commercial deep-draft navigation and economic competitiveness.
Jeff Landry
#33. Sometimes I wondered if it even mattered whether our communion cups were filled with consecrated wine or draft beer, as long as we bent over them long enough to recognize each other as kin.
Barbara Brown Taylor
#34. The benefit of this kind of outlining is that you discover a story's flaws before you invest a lot of time writing the first draft, and it's almost impossible to get stuck at a difficult chapter, because you've already done the work to push through those kinds of blocks.
George Stephen
#35. Writing a first draft is like trying to build a house in a strong wind.
William Faulkner
#36. I was the second-best player in high school. I was the second pick in the draft. I've been second in the MVP voting three times. I came in second in the Finals. I'm tired of being second. I'm not going to settle for that. I'm done with it.
Kevin Durant
#37. Unfortunately, when we had a No. 1 draft pick, there wasn't an Andrew Luck out there. A lot of that's pure luck.
Bob McNair
#38. To be a self rewritten from a lost first draft.
J.J. Abrams
#40. of a total of 268) affixed their signatures to the Nineteen Articles.
It was indicated that the Draft Committee would meet within the year to review and, if necessary, revise the statement.
R.C. Sproul
#41. Someday I would like to be the kind of writer who barrels through a draft, but I can't even seem to barrel through an interview like this, so I imagine I have a long way to go.
Holly Black
#42. Shirley Jackson said that a confused reader is an antagonistic reader, and I live by that. It's okay to start anywhere, and to let yourself write a big sloppy overly-detailed first draft. You just jump in, knowing that the water will be cold at first, but no one is making you swim.
Anne Lamott
#43. I listen to a lot of different stuff, from Mozart to Johnny Dowd to Monster Magnet. I don't listen to music while I'm writing a draft, but I do listen to it when I'm revising.
Donald Ray Pollock
#44. Write with abandon and no constraints for first draft. Cut brutally and save in separate files on second draft. Add conflict; don't be afraid to make your characters suffer. Read what you love. Write what you love. Love.
Francesca Lia Block
#45. I get ill when I'm writing because I'm so focused on it, and it can take a year or two. Often, I knock out the first draft very quickly. I can do it in five to six weeks. Then, it takes a year of rewriting it and rewriting it.
Eran Creevy
#46. Snooki is a bestselling author? Huh? What? I don't know if I should dumb down my book, shoot myself or find a publisher who'll settle for a rough draft written on a Pop-Tart and a coconut lotion handie..
Geoffrey Hill
#47. Listen you..you.."he sputtered.
"You what ? You've already used hellion,draft girl and missy' .i can think of several more degradation,but then again im not the one trying so hard to be intimidating."
"How about you,maddending,foolish,moronic little chit ?"
"Much better !" she applauded.
Kate Noble
#48. It's still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.
Maya Angelou
#49. Draft day is a hectic day, especially for draftees and, more or less, for management.
Kyrie Irving
#50. Anti-intellectual resentment is common in all of American life and it has many diverse expressions. Refusing to draft college players might have been one of them.
Bill James
Michael Lewis
#51. When I finish a first draft, I often look back at first chapters I wrote and laugh at them. They're like pictures of yourself in middle school. You're embarrassed to see them.
Scott Westerfeld
#52. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of beginning writers who think you can just write your first draft and hand it in.
Chevy Stevens
#53. I think how veterans are treated in our country is an abomination. We don't have the draft any more, which is why so many soldiers come from working-class - rather than middle- or high-income families. Those wealthier families aren't affected, so they're not agitating for change.
Laurie Halse Anderson
#54. They already knew that they would be telling people about the morning for a long time to come, maybe for the rest of their lives, and the taxi ride was the first attempt at a first draft of a story that would have to satisfy parents, siblings, children, and grandchildren.
Nick Hornby
#55. If you draft me, you'll never regret it.
Kwame Brown
#56. The men who mine coal and fire furnaces and balance ledgers and turn lathes and pick cotton and heal the sick and plant corn - all serve as proudly, and as profitably, for America as the statesmen who draft treaties and the legislators who enact laws.
George Washington
#57. You go to the draft board and think, 'Here's a nose tackle. Who needs a nose tackle?' Well, eight teams in front of you need a nose tackle, and there's two nose tackles. It's something you have to figure out where you can get the players to play in your system.
Bill Belichick
#58. Seventy percent of a first draft is garbage and 30 percent is gold, but you have to write 100 percent to get that 30.
Laurell K. Hamilton
#59. When I was writing my first draft, and feeling grandiose, I e-mailed an artist/clothing designer I know and suggested we collaborate on a fashion line inspired by the outfits my characters wore. I regret that we never did that.
Heidi Julavits
#60. I've always equated the writing process with editing, sort of like when I get through editing the movie, that's like my last draft of the screenplay.
Quentin Tarantino
#61. Until recently, the question was 'Why can't a woman be more like a man?' It should have been changed to 'Why can't both sexes be more like the best parts of each other?' Instead, the pendulum swung to the 1960s feminist lapel button Adam Was a First Draft. True enough. So are we all.
Warren Farrell
#62. When you're a litigator, you write so much, so many briefs, over and over again, that you're kind of really focused on one document and have draft after draft, and really pay attention to every single word.
Greg Poehler
#63. My first draft is the skeleton of the story. I have to go back over it from start to finish repeatedly, adding all the layers of meat to the bones until, eventually, it becomes a living, breathing thing.
Alisha Ashton
#64. I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add.
Gore Vidal
#65. To have someone like Clint Eastwood come along and shoot your first draft as written is just any screenwriter's dream. And Clint is very straightforward. If it's good enough to get his attention, it's good enough to produce.
J. Michael Straczynski
#66. It's not just the NFL. Every other league has a draft. It has been fundamental to the success of professional sports.
Roger Goodell
#67. Whether I'm writing the script, or someone else writes the initial draft, I'm always an actor's director first. I always try to listen to them a lot and try to put their voices into their character.
Dito Montiel
#68. I normally keep a series of draft in a catalogue type of book in which I scribble, sketch and draw ideas.
Jonathan Shapiro
#69. Whenever I try to map things out they inevitably change. Which doesn't mean I don't map them out - I just try to embrace the better ideas that come along as my fingers are flying around the keyboard mid-draft!
Ransom Riggs
#70. The first draft is all about freedom, and if loyalty is in question, it is only my loyalty to the characters and situations on the page. All the worries about where the material may have sprung from or what so-and-so might think can be dealt with later.
Jill McCorkle
#71. We draft mostly high school kids and we have one of the finest, if not the finest, player development programs and coaching staffs and we teach our players the right way to play. We also have a game plan in scouting, and there are certain types of players that we look for.
Roy Clark
#72. I have been your draft for my whole life, let me in or discard me forever.
M.F. Moonzajer
#73. When only men could register to vote, we required only men to register for the draft. Today both sexes can vote, but only men must register for the draft.
Warren Farrell
#74. Learn to take criticism. Your first draft won't be perfect, and it's damaging to the book to think that it is. Every great book you've ever read has been rewritten a dozen times. This is the hardest think to learn (trust me), but very, very important.
Patrick Ness
#75. Back then I said to myself 'screw football.' Actually I just took part in this camp as there was nothing better for me to do. They also didn't draft me because they thought I was too wild and undisciplined.
Ed O'Neill
#76. Conducted by the Draft Committee. The present text makes clear exactly what the Council affirmed and denied. Obviously, those who signed the articles do not necessarily concur in every interpretation advocated by the commentary. Not even the members of the Draft Committee
R.C. Sproul
#77. Having done television for almost 20 years now, a pilot is kind of like a rough draft. It's like bringing people into your ultrasound and hooking up to the monitor and going, "Isn't my baby beautiful?" "Yeah. I can only see the outline of it, but it looks like it might be."
Matt Bomer
#78. Francisco Garcia could have been a high draft choice last year, probably in the 20s. He's the best wing player I've ever coached. But he's done it the right way. He knew he had to work on his body to become a good pro. When he goes into the pros, he'll be physically ready.
Rick Pitino
#79. I don't write a play from beginning to end. I don't write an outline. I write scenes and moments as they occur to me. And I still write on a typewriter. It's not all in ether. It's on pages. I sequence them in a way that tends to make sense. Then I write what's missing, and that's my first draft.
Richard Greenberg
#80. Random thoughts that fly away.
Where words has no place to stay.
Let it be right where they are.
Let the work of art preserve its life.
Diana Rose Morcilla
#82. I believe that improvisation is really just a directorial tool. It's a writing tool. It's not so much that the actors get to say whatever they want, whatever pops into their head. It's an opportunity to write the last draft of the screenplay as you're working on it.
Ivan Reitman
#83. I have a secret goal with my editor - he has asthma and uses his inhaler, and after I send him a new manuscript, I'll have his assistant phone me and tell me how many times he had to get his inhaler out while reading a draft. It's my secret laugh meter.
Chuck Palahniuk
#84. The type of athletes we draft still need types of versatility on the defense side of the ball, run the offense. You should still be concerned on the offense side of the ball.
Isaiah Thomas
#85. I write everything out in longhand in one fast go. And then I throw out the first few and start over again. By the end of the first draft, the whole thing's messy and disgusting and horrible, but you really understand the foundational stuff.
Lauren Groff
#86. We kept my middle schooler home from school for three days before we turned in our final draft because she was so mean and so brutal at editing out all the cheesy bits. She would roll her eyes and make fun of us, and it was what we needed.
Margaret Stohl
#87. As a matter of policy from the beginning with our team, there have been three things we've said we won't draft a player: if they've been involved in domestic violence, drug abuse, or if they show lack of respect for authority.
Bob McNair
#88. After I've sent my revised draft to my agent and editor, they suggest more improvement sand again, this revision phase can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months.
Margaret Haddix
#89. I do a nice sloppy first draft like everybody else. And then just work at it and work at it and groom it. I get input from other people.
Diablo Cody
#90. Once you have the first draft it's living, and you can coax it to grow and trim it and reshape it and so on. But get that first draft.
Elliott Colla
#91. Senescent judges show how patriotic they are by passing out hard sentences for tearing up a draft card or following one's conscience according to the principles established by our country at the Nuremburg trials.
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
#92. One of the reasons why I had such a horrible draft is that I hosted an eight-hour pool party before the draft. and so I wasn't quite in my perfect drafting form.
Katie Aselton
#93. If you're having trouble finishing a book, it might be that you're trying to fix it as you go. Just finish the story, no matter how terrible you think that first draft is. Then let it cool off. In other words, don't look at it for a while. Then you can rewrite it.
Kimberly Willis Holt
#94. This does make me very very careful, particularly in the second draft, to get it right, because you do feel that somebody in the future who may be extremely important for everybody, is going to have me behind them, and this is a responsibility, a huge one.
Diana Wynne Jones
#95. Every published writer suffers through that first draft because most of the time, that's a disappointment.
Rebecca Stead
#96. I write with a fountain pen. And then revise word by word and line by line so that the first draft of a scene is usually the tenth or so draft.
John Dufresne
#97. But if you worry about other people as you write a first draft, you will not be able to free your unconscious mind to give up its treasures. It will be bound by the great dogs of your fear,
Pat Schneider
#98. Still, I believe the first draft of a book - even a long one - should take no more than three months, the length of a season.
Stephen King
#99. So in the first draft, I'm inventing people and place with a broad schematic idea of what's going to happen. In the process, of course, I discover all sorts of bigger and more substantial things.
Peter Carey
#100. Writing, yeah. Me and my friend Scott Bloom just finished the first rough draft of a script. It's taken us three years to do, but we finally got a first draft. And we'll see whatever happens with that.
Ethan Suplee
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
