Top 100 Quotes About In Writing
#1. There is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.
H.L. Mencken
#2. One problem was that my direct testimony was in writing, so a lot of people didn't get to see it. I hope they see it, because I think it built a very strong case.
Jim Barksdale
#3. I don't know if nature is a direct literary influence on my writing, but it is certainly important to me. I take great joy in writing about it. It is something I have taken with me from my childhood; the body exposed to the threat of the physical world and at the same time being at home in it.
Per Petterson
#4. Well, in features, and in writing especially, it's often the style of the writer comes in.
Kurt Loder
#5. Even in writing an annual report, the unconscious plays a role.
Mason Cooley
#6. In writing I am seduced by the sound of words and by the interaction of their sound and sense.
Barbara W. Tuchman
#7. I suppose that there are endeavors in which self-confidence is even more important than it is in writing
tightrope walking comes immediately to mind
but it's difficult for me to think of anybody producing much writing if his confidence is completely shot.
Calvin Trillin
#8. In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.
H.P. Lovecraft
#9. I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.
Agatha Christie
#10. Often in writing programs, articulation and clarity are more important than what you actually say.
Etgar Keret
#11. What I fear in writing is the safe decision.
Anne Rice
#12. I have written a number of short biographical studies of insignificant personages from literary history. My interest has always been in writing biographies of the also-rans: people who lived in the shadow of fame in their own lifetime and who, since their death, have sunk into profound obscurity.
Diane Setterfield
#13. Men of quality are in the wrong to undervalue, as they often do, the practise of a fair and quick hand in writing; for it is no immaterial accomplishment.
Quintilian
#14. I vow to pick up my socks."
"Can I get that in writing?
Cassie Mae
#15. In writing this book, I send out signals, like a lighthouse beacon in whose power to illuminate the darkness, alas, I have no faith. But I live in hope.
Patrick Modiano
#16. For me, the real pleasure in writing is in having an excuse to pursue my curiosity about people who have meant something to me.
Robert Gottlieb
#17. I think everything has its place. So if the ideas or the fluidity isn't coming in writing, maybe it's related to ingestions.
Saul Williams
#18. I am but little disposed to put things in writing. One almost always regrets doing so.
Charles Baudelaire
#19. The challenge to writers today, I think, is not to disown any part of our heritage. Whatever our theme in writing, it is old and tried. Whatever our place, it has been visited by the stranger, it will never be new again. It is only the vision that can be new; but that is enough.
Eudora Welty
#20. In writing, there is art. And in art there is craft ...
Susi Moore
#21. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.
Betty Smith
#22. The most important thing in writing process is the vibe cause if you on a roll, if you feel it you just feel it. And it's all about the atmosphere, the people around you, you know, everything. You got to be clear headed in that and have a perfect atmosphere.
French Montana
#23. My major aim in writing is to set out flags and issue wake-up calls.
James Broughton
#24. There's something presumptuous in writing an autobiography, as if people's interest in your life is a given.
Simon Pegg
#25. Joseph Robertson wrote in an essay on punctuation in 1785, "The art of punctuation is of infinite consequence in writing; as it contributes to the perspicuity, and consequently to the beauty, of every composition.
Lynne Truss
#26. Unsuccessful people carry their goals around in their head like marbles rattling around in a can, and we say a goal that is not in writing is merely a fantasy.
Darren Hardy
#27. That was, in writing the 'Twilight' script I had about five weeks to write that. I'd taken about a month to write the outline and then it was slam into a script and write it down fast because the writer's strike was looming.
Melissa Rosenberg
#28. In writing, as in life, its not the big words that are the problem its the little minds that read them.
Rassool Jibraeel Snyman
#29. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
Alexander Pope
#31. There is ... a big aspect of play in writing novels, and making the story more and more elaborate is just more and more fun.
Gish Jen
#32. I am keenly aware that in writing about my mother, I am writing about my aunts' sister, and that in writing about my grandmother, I'm writing about their mother. I know that my honesty about how my view of these people has changed over the years may be painful.
Tracy K. Smith
#33. I did try to write stories in college because I was interested in writing, and I was interested in the sound of language, but I was just no good at narrative and at fiction.
Billy Collins
#34. My interest in writing about American history stemmed originally, I think, from a subconscious desire to find roots - I felt like a girl without a country. I have put down roots quite firmly by now, but in the process, I have discovered the joys of research and am probably hooked.
Jean Fritz
#35. The great pleasure for me in writing short stories is the fierce, elegant challenge.
Amy Bloom
#36. I try to keep my voice in writing, and I think that's why I get so many complaints about how I write.
Stanley Cavell
#37. This will surprise some of your readers, but my primary interest is not with computer security. I am primarily interested in writing software that works as intended.
Wietse Venema
#38. Method is not less requisite in ordinary conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood.
Joseph Addison
#39. Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form. More than any other single invention writing has transformed human consciousness.
Walter J. Ong
#40. When I say I'm instinctive [in writing], I do feel like I need to hide what I'm doing from myself. My mind just needs to be able to operate untrammeled.
Brian Evenson
#41. Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which it is intended to express, whether verbally or in writing, or in any other way, the real process of thought. Thought's dictation, free from any control by the reason, independent of any aesthetic or moral preoccupation.
Andre Breton
#42. The only failure in writing is when you stop doing it. Then you fail yourself.
Natalie Goldberg
#43. If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.
Kingsley Amis
#44. In a way - I know how crazy this will sound, of course I do, but there is no sense in writing something as long as this if you can't say what feels true to your heart.
Stephen King
#45. The only 'ironclad rules' in writing fiction are the laws of physics and the principles of grammar, and even those can be bent.
Val Kovalin
#46. Writing wasn't about making money. I wanted to find fulfillment in writing and telling stories, and that's what's driven me.
Ted Dekker
#47. The biggest difference in writing a sequel is that now there are expectations. But also - and this is the awesome part - now there are fans, too!
Tim Federle
#48. Sometimes in writing you have difficult periods and then other times it just flows.
Roman Coppola
#49. Because the goal in writing is always to get to the truth of a character, dig inside and find out what drives them and how they feel, I think there is a part of me in every character I write.
Shannon Baker
#50. Prescriptive grammar has spread linguistic insecurity like a plague among English speakers for centuries, numbs us to the aesthetic richness of non-standard speech, and distracts us from attending to genuine issues of linguistic style in writing.
John McWhorter
#51. I have an MFA in writing. It is debatable if they are right for everyone, but I had a mentor who really changed my life, so it worked for me.
Rob Roberge
#52. Cognitive consonance is what writing in the Age of the idiot is all about. The key to success in the scribbling profession is to strike the right balance of mediocrity in writing and thinking, which invariably entails echoing one of two party lines, poorly.
Ilana Mercer
#53. It's one of the most liberating things I experience in writing - letting yourself get rid of a gesture or character or plot point that always nagged, even if you couldn't admit to yourself that it did.
Leslie Jamison
#54. In writing novels, you have to believe in yourself or there would be no way to sustain it. But you also have to give good evidence regularly for having that faith in self-either with quality goods or with, at least, "good efforts." Working hard will do when inspiration is not forthcoming.
Rachel Kushner
#55. Another thing that's quite different in writing a book as a practicing newspaperman is that if you look at what you've written the next morning and you think you didn't get it quite right, you can fix it.
Adam Clymer
#56. In writing, as in medicine, there are no short cuts. You need stamina.
Abraham Verghese
#57. I've always claimed that success in writing - provided of course one had what it takes to make a writer - is like success in marriage, largely a question of good sportsmanship, of keeping on keeping on, of giving one's best and trying, everlastingly trying to make that best, better.
Emilie Loring
#58. In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration.
John Steinbeck
#59. The experience of writing 'The Kite Runner' is one I will always think back on with fondness. There is an energy, a romance in writing the first novel that can never be duplicated again.
Khaled Hosseini
#60. I often find that when a ruthless editor forces me to trim an article to fit into a certain number of column-inches, the quality of my prose improves as if by magic. Brevity is the soul of wit, and of many other virtues in writing.
Steven Pinker
#61. My mother read nursery rhymes to me, and my grandmother told me folk stories, but as a child I had no interest in writing whatsoever.
Alan Garner
#62. [T]he one thing I want for you is to recognize when you are really singing in writing practice and honor that. Trust that. When you were screaming on the page. Maybe that doesn't make a whole book but that is the true seed.
Natalie Goldberg
#63. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.
Anonymous
#64. If you are a married man resident in Cuba, you cannot get a passport to go to the next town without your wife's permission in writing.
Edward Burnett Tylor
#65. I'm so independent in writing stuff and controlling what I do. Sometimes I get calls from people asking to be in their movie, but I'm always writing or editing, and I can never get around to doing it. I'm so much more interested in my own stuff. I think I drive my agent crazy.
Chris Lilley
#67. I think dreams are metaphors. Everything you do in writing is metaphorical. So it seems like the same arena to me.
Charlie Kaufman
#68. I tell young people who ask me about a future in writing not to go into it unless they get married to someone rich.
F. Sionil Jose
#69. Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It's one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period.
Nicholas Sparks
#70. I think there is a lot of overexplaining both in writing and acting. People don't need to be hit on the head.
Clive Owen
#71. In a way, I'm very interested in writing about Maine, because I think Maine represents its own kind of history. It's the oldest state, and it's the whitest state.
Elizabeth Strout
#72. It gives me great pleasure, a good name. I always in writing start with a name. Give me a name and it produces a story, not the other way about normally.
J.R.R. Tolkien
#73. I discovered in writing the biography of Bill Clinton that it is actually easier to write a biography of someone who is dead. Although you can't interview them, you have a fuller perspective on their whole life after they're gone and people are more willing to talk about them.
David Maraniss
#74. In writing non-fiction about people who are living, you are always walking a fine line, carrying a burden to be fair that, in my opinion, should always be there.
Jonathan Coleman
#75. One would think that in writing about literary men and matters there would be no difficulty in finding a title for one's essay, or that any embarrassment which might arise would be from excess of material. I find this, however, far from being the case.
James Payn
#76. To write about business one should be in business, just as in writing about Tasmania one should visit Tasmania.
James Cook
#77. Planning is the mother of almost every other ability. Make your plan and set a timetable for its accomplishment in writing.
Sterling W. Sill
#78. Reading snow is like listening to music. To describe what you've read is like explaining music in writing.
Peter Hoeg
#79. That which resembles most living one's life over again, seems to be to recall all the circumstances of it; and, to render this remembrance more durable, to record them in writing.
Benjamin Franklin
#80. I don't believe in writing people off.
Rico Love
#81. [S]ometimes in writing of myself ... I have occasionally had the exquisite thrill of putting my finger on a little capsule of truth, and heard it give the faint squeak of mortality under my pressure, an antic sound.
E.B. White
#82. When you imagine and clearly articulate your goals in writing, you access the creative energy of your right brain. Imagination and creativity allow you to find solutions to problems that were not previously available to you and give your left brain an opportunity to be receptive to new ideas.
Julie Connor
#83. As usual, the note occupied less than a page and included neither salutation nor closing, Uncle Hal's opinion being that since the letter had a direction upon it, the intended recipient was obvious, the seal indicated plainly who had written it, and he did not waste his time in writing to fools.
Diana Gabaldon
#84. You have to really understand how people speak, and you have to reconstruct it ... Most pleasure in writing, you know, is in inventing.
Grace Paley
#85. The ancient Hebrews did not write the name of God. I often wish the Christians would follow suit, as never was a word more misused in writing and speaking than the name of the Lord.
Dagobert D. Runes
#86. I tend to basically exaggerate in life, and in writing, it's fine to exaggerate. I really enjoy overstating for the purpose of getting a laugh. For another thing, writing is easier than digging ditches. Well, actually, that's an exaggeration. It isn't.
Dr. Seuss
#87. I don't think I'm essentially interested in children's books. I'm interested in writing, and in pictures. I'm interested in people and in children because they are people.
Margaret Wise Brown
#88. Ifukube's music was rarely tampered with or shortened by Honda after it had been recorded and the director gave his composer total freedom in writing whatever music he deemed appropriate.
Peter H. Brothers
#89. I'm never interested in writing a kind of neutral, universal novel that could be set anywhere. To me, the novel is a local thing.
Zadie Smith
#90. Often the block [in writing] comes from the wall of words that keep out the simplicity of sense.
Adam Gopnik
#91. On July 26, 1916, I announced to all my friends in America that from now on I resolved to write no more poems in the classical language, and to begin my experiments in writing poetry in the so-called vulgar tongue of the people.
Hu Shih
#92. I don't use a computer in writing at all. I'm sort of old-fashioned about it.
James Horner
#93. I have long discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness.
Charles Darwin
#94. I actually find a lot of pleasure in writing lyrics.
King Krule
#95. I don't really read as much as I used to. A lot of what I was looking for as an escape I find in writing. And the other thing is that I don't want to get into someone else's language when I'm working.
Alice Hoffman
#96. The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.
Raymond Chandler
#97. My aunt is a newscaster in Lubbock, Texas, and she got a letter that said, 'Natalie Maines will be shot dead at their show in Dallas, Texas,' with the date of our concert. It was freaky to see that in writing.
Natalie Maines
#98. Writing this book is not just me encouraging others to lean in. This is me leaning in. Writing this book is what I would do if I weren't afraid.
Sheryl Sandberg
#99. Time, which is your enemy in almost everything in this life, is your friend in writing.
Tobias Wolff
#100. The greatest influence in writing was G. K. Chesterton who never used a useless word, who saw the value of a paradox, and avoided what was trite.
Fulton J. Sheen
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