Top 88 Quotes About Writing Skills
#1. Hone your writing skills as if they were your finest weapons of war. For in the literary arena, your pen will truly be your sword.
Max Hawthorne
#2. Well, I definitely have an artistic side to me as well. I write, I act, I draw. With that artistic mind I have, a lot of doors have opened for me. I can try to pursue, like - if it's something using my writing skills, maybe a book. Or maybe if it's my drawing skills, some clothing designs.
Vinny Guadagnino
#3. According to the English scholar Richard Lloyd-Jones, some of the clay tablets deciphered from ancient Sumerian include complaints about the deteriorating writing skills of the young.
Steven Pinker
#4. I've lost my writing skills since college. I couldn't write a book. It would take a long time.
Stephen Malkmus
#5. The journalism school helped me develop writing skills, and I had been enjoying cartooning from a very young age. My interest in puppetry, however, came much later.
William Jackson
#6. I've always had a vivid imagination in terms of storytelling, but thankfully I learned early on that imagination can be stifled or enhanced by one's writing ability - what I call word work. My goal from then on was to make sure my writing skills were up to speed with my imagination.
Marvin Brown
#7. I see creative-writing classes as some sort of AA meeting. It is more of a support group for people who write than an actual course in which you learn writing skills. This support group is extremely important because there is something very lonely about writing.
Etgar Keret
#8. I ain't no author, man ... my writing skills are not of 'New York Times' best-seller quality, trust and believe it ain't. My vocabulary ain't.
Steve Harvey
#9. Like good reading skills, good writing skills require immersion and imaginative engagement.
Sara Sheridan
#10. I speak Mandarin and can read and write a little. I took a few classes at Harvard to get better in my reading and writing skills.
Jeremy Lin
#11. It goes without saying that a good Catholic novel should be good craftsmanship, good writing skills. The creative person must always be engaged in the long labor of perfecting the tools of his art. Yet the work itself need not be explicitly evangelical in its themes and plots.
Michael O'Brien
#12. I actually credit Twitter with fine-tuning some joke-writing skills. I still feel like I'm working at it.
Steve Martin
#13. I found it more pleasurable to write something, sing a melody over it. At a very young age, I kind of honed my writing skills, I guess.
DJ Ashba
#14. Improve writing skills: 1. Keep paragraphs short. 2. Use bold and CAPS to make points. 3. Start with a question or short statement. 4. Give me meat in the middle. All meat. 5. Make me smile, think, or act at the end.
Jeffrey Gitomer
#15. A writer who has perfect writing skills and zero honesty is not an author but a sales person.
Sandra Chami Kassis
#16. I think poor poetry writing skills are excused when you're simply trying to flush out emotions.
Katie Kiesler
#17. Author' is just a fancy word for Schizophrenic people with good writing skills and cash.
Testy McTesterson
#18. Staying healthy through movement and eating well gives you tons of energy and helps mold the skills that allow you to achieve goals from playing soccer to doing a tough homework assignment to writing a song.
Sabrina Bryan
#19. In my view, a philanthropist is anyone who gives anything - time, money, experience, skills or networks - in any amount, to create a better world. This is not how we once thought about philanthropy. The word used to conjure up something rather passive - sitting down and writing checks.
Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen
#20. Someone who wants to write should make an effort to write a little something every day. Writing in this sense is the same as athletes who practice a sport every day to keep their skills honed.
Anita Desai
#21. Writing a book is the most terrifying thing that I've ever done. It's so much harder than writing for television because it is a completely different skill set.
Mindy Kaling
#22. I realized that I was writing about folks with lots of skills, especially fix-it skills and survival skills, who were nonetheless not doing well in the new-millennium America.
Bonnie Jo Campbell
#23. I have met bright students in computer science who have never seen the source code of a large program. They may be good at writing small programs, but they can't begin to learn the different skills of writing large ones if they can't see how others have done it.
Richard Stallman
#24. An unedited manuscript is a first draft of story; but is not a finished product. Too many writers study the craft of writing but do not acquire the skills of an editor.
Michael J. Kannengieser
#25. The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.
Edwin Schlossberg
#26. Prof. Emi Ito said "Lailah, if you can't explain the scientific observations in a simple sentence, it means you do not know enough.
Lailah Gifty Akita
#27. Songwriting is a really fortunate skill to have to frame living and to find new ways to observe things you're going through.
Feist
#28. Practise, practise, practise writing. Writing is a craft that requires both talent and acquired skills. You learn by doing, by making mistakes and then seeing where you went wrong.
Jeffrey Carver
#29. I'm always writing. And, I mean, I always counsel people when they call me a musician: I really do not have the skills of a musician. I really don't think like a musician, though I love music and I perform and sing.
Patti Smith
#31. The most important people is to pick people who like to write software and who are good at ... good developers like working with each other. And they ... they reinforce each other's skills.
Bill Gates
#32. The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seemsas absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.
Mary Blakely
#33. Writers who learn to leave holes in manuscripts to be filled later master valuable skills in writing: they learn to proceed amid ambiguity and uncertainty
Wendy Laura Belcher
#34. Follow the rules until you make them.
Luke Green
#35. We can read a good spiritual book in search of information or in search of God. We will find only what we're looking for.
Ron Brackin
#36. When I was seven we moved to Orpington, and in my new school, I was kept in for extra lessons to learn 'joined-up' writing instead of playing football. I still think that my poor handwriting and lack of soccer skills date from that period.
Martin Evans
#37. I'm not unfamiliar with music, and I really do write music. I've gotten a talent for it. I don't have the technical skills, but I do plan to learn.
Anthony Hopkins
#38. Writing is a skill, not a talent, and this difference is important because a skill can be improved by practice.
Robert Stacy McCain
#39. Children need far more than basic skills in reading, writing, and math, as important as those might be. Children also need to learn how to think for themselves, how to find meaning in what they learn, and how to work and live together.
Marshall B. Rosenberg
#40. Note to myself - It is time for me to start taking my guitar lessons. One of my neighbor's singing and guitar strumming skills are so cool that I can't stop marveling at the music wafting around here.
Avijeet Das
#42. All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.
Francine Prose
#43. No one looks at your hands to see how much they shake when you are interviewed to be a surgeon. The physical skills required are no greater than for writing cursive script. If an operation requires so much skill only a few surgeons can do it, you modify the operation to make it simpler.
Atul Gawande
#44. Speech is highly elliptical. It would scarcely be endurable otherwise. Ellipsis is indispensable to the writer or speaker who wants to be brief and pithy, but it can easily cause confusion and obscurity and must be used with skill.
Bergen Evans
#45. Writing a poem ... is a kind of possible love affair between something like the heart (that courageous but also shy factory of emotion) and the learned skills of the conscious mind.
Mary Oliver
#46. The basic skills of math, English and writing are not enough, ... You must develop a basic system of values to form and guide the use of these skills. The true test will not be what you learned in college, but how you used what you learned.
Jim Rogers
#47. Today, however, we know that writing, at least science writing, is partly a skill. And skills can be improved. The pain can be reduced.
Michael L. Rosenzweig
#48. What I like most about the stories I write is exploring other lives and professions. It's a way of having all the jobs I can't have now. I can also give myself skills I don't have.
Katie Fforde
#49. Writing is my passion and burns in me like a fire. I'm always writing and honing my skills to feed the flames.
Gabriela M. Sanchez
#50. In 1970 the top three skills required by the Fortune 500 were the three Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. In 1999 the top three skills in demand were teamwork, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills. We need schools that are developing these skills.
Linda Darling-Hammond
#52. Skill in writing frees you to write what you want to write. It may also show you what you want to write. Craft enables art.
Ursula K. Le Guin
#53. I have never pretended to be a great writer. I am totally immodest about being a great reporter and a good news writer. I write fast and I write accurately, nearly as accurately as anybody can be, and that's my skill.
Walter Cronkite
#54. If a young aspirant had a modicum of skill and a busy typewriter she or he would sooner or later get a foothold in one of the magazines and a leaping start on the ladder upward.
James A. Michener
#55. I don't understand why one should be one thing or the other. Writing, to me, is writing is writing. It should be a flexible tool. Whatever skills I have, have to work for me; I won't be dictated by them.
Sonya Hartnett
#56. I'm close to my audience. I think I have more tools in my box than other guys who might try it. Also, I know how to do this stuff. I know how to write and shoot and edit. I'm technically adept and that helped with the website. You need a big skill set.
Louis C.K.
#57. Attention and focus are essential skills for writers in a noise-filled world.
Anne H. Janzer
#58. Yet in our enthusiasm for the idea that everyone should be able to read and write fluently, we may be missing a crucial point: in today's culture, finely honed literacy skills are simply not as important as they once were.
Hugh Mackay
#59. As journalism dies, I kind of feel like I want some skills besides writing. I'd like to be able to write movies or host TV shows or whatever. Things that I might actually not inherently like quite as much, but are interesting and fun things to do. A good backup plan.
Joel Stein
#60. ARGH! There's no such thing [as writer's block]. Seriously: THERE. IS. NO. SUCH. THING. You know what there is? There's a bunch of problems, creative and otherwise, that can stop you writing. They are not block. They are important skills.
Nick Harkaway
#61. My students - all adults - bring a lot of writing skill to the first class, and they and I get better as the class progresses.
James Thayer
#62. If a 25-year old can't read and write and he or she isn't gaining marketable skills, it doesn't matter if a Republican or a Democrat is in the White House. His or her future will be bleak.
J. C. Watts
#63. My background is really being a writer's actor - that seems to be the way I work best, bringing out the best of writing. There's a whole range of acting skills, and some people can be astonishing with very poor material. That's not me; my skill is essentially unlocking the writing.
Lindsay Duncan
#64. As I grew older I found that I really had a knack for rhyming and I pursued that. So by thirteen I got serious about using my writing and rhyming skills. I did it everywhere I could.
LeCrae
#65. No one can learn to love by following a manual and no one can learn to write by following a course. I'm not telling you to find people with different skills from yourself, because writing is no different from any other activity done with joy and enthusiasm.
Paulo Coelho
#66. Writing the opening lines of a story is a bit like starting to ski at the steepest part of a hill. You must have all your skills under control from the first instant.
Marion Dane Bauer
#67. I think young writers should get other degrees first, social sciences, arts degrees or even business degrees. What you learn is research skills, a necessity because a lot of writing is about trying to find information.
Irvine Welsh
#68. A lot of young girls don't realise how diverse the career opportunities are in games development. Many think that you need elite math skills and a vast knowledge of all things tech to work in games, and haven't thought about avenues like design, producing, art, writing or composing.
Rhianna Pratchett
#69. Science fiction at its best should be crazy and dangerous, not sane and safe.
Paul Di Filippo
#70. Writing a novel that works is an extremely difficult thing to do. It requires a level of skill and dedication that always surprises me.
Bret Easton Ellis
#71. Writing requires a great deal of skill, just like painting does. People don't want to learn those skills.
John Milius
#72. There is both a skill factor and an effort factor in dream recall. People can develop dream recall skills, such as lying still in the morning and writing down whatever comes to mind.
Henry Reed
#73. Somewhere along the line, I realized that I liked telling stories, and I decided that I would try writing. Ten years later, I finally got a book published. It was hard. I had no skills. I knew nothing about the business of getting published. So I had to keep working at it.
Janet Evanovich
#74. Universal literacy was a 20th-century goal. Before then, reading and writing were skills largely confined to a small, highly educated class of professional people.
Hugh Mackay
#75. We postpone our literary work until we have more ripeness and skill to write, and we one day discover that our literary talent wasa youthful effervescence which we have now lost.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#76. I was just this chubby little Indian kid who looked like a nerd. I didn't have a ton of academic skills. It wasn't until I was in high school that I was like, "I guess I like writing dialogue." So that's how I got into it.
Mindy Kaling
#77. Writing is like that. You have to have some basic creative spark, and then, if you have that, I feel like you can learn the production side of it. You can learn how to be a good producer. And I guess it does take a certain balance of those two skills in your head to be a successful showrunner.
Ronald D. Moore
#78. It was just me in my basement honing my skills, hearing songs on the radio and trying to manipulate them and then writing over those, and I started with local artists in Boston, writing records for them.
Clinton Sparks
#79. Writing requires discipline, detailed thinking, good communication skills, a plan of action, clear vision, and a passion for people. CMT Stibbe
C.M.T. Stibbe
#80. I often think I am a better person because I lived for many years of my life with a flashlight. I have developed skills I did not think were possible - bathing with a cup of water by candlelight, for instance, and writing a story with a headlamp on.
Janine Di Giovanni
#81. Once I had all the facts in, I found I didn't have the immoral courage to pull the caper. So I wrote it as a story. As a teenager, I didn't have any skills for writing as such, so it came out in 1500 words.
Theodore Sturgeon
#82. Earning money is not the sole objective of life or education. A community of any quality should have a whole range of skills and interests. They should paint, write, perform, visit art galleries and enjoy world-class concerts. Only then will they form a vibrant, rounded, interesting community.
Goh Chok Tong
#83. In the industry, trying out new genres is not always encouraged but what I've discovered is that as a writer, a jaunt outside my comfort zone generally brings new skills to the main body of my work.
Sara Sheridan
#84. At first I had no skills in writing comedy. I didn't know what a joke was, but, as someone once told me, your emotions follow your intent. If you create the intention of starting a comedy act, slowly your mind starts adjusting and you arrive at a new emotional state.
Steve Martin
#85. It isn't often that a writer of superlative skills knows enough about flying to write well about it.
Samuel Hynes
#86. There are other types of public appearances a writer does in addition to book signings and readings. Each calls for different skills. None of these skills, needless to say, are those that go into writing books.
Jane Lindskold
#88. I'm sure that writing isn't a craft, that is, something for which you learn the skills and go on turning out. It must come from some deep impulse, deep inspiration. That can't be taught, it can't be what you use in teaching.
Robert Lowell
