Top 100 You Write Quotes
#1. I always write with my .357 magnum handy. Why? Well, you never know when God may try to interfere.
Edward Abbey
#3. If you can write a character who is attractive but morally reprehensible, then you've got a character. It's got to feel like people I know and it doesn't just become a bag of tricks.
Jez Butterworth
#4. You write so beautifully
the inside of your mind must be a terrible place
Unknown
#6. Through lack of education, we're not teaching kids to read and write. So there is the danger that you raise up a generation of morons.
Ray Bradbury
#7. Madness is terrific I can assure you, and not to be sniffed at; and in its lava I still find most of the things I write about. It shoots out of one everything shaped, final, not in mere driblets, as sanity does.
Virginia Woolf
#8. The beauty of being an Author is, It's your story and you can write what ever you want.
Toni House
#9. You know, I like to think my life is kind of like the books I read, only I'm the author. I can write the story I want. The future can be anything I want it to be." He moved his head side to side, considering my words. "That works, as long as your story has a blond stud that fucks like an animal.
Adriana Locke
#11. You should write about your life. It's kind of funny. When it's not depressing as hell.
Jeni Decker
#12. If you're going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.
Louis L'Amour
#13. It's extremely difficult to describe interestingly what happens on the pitch. Thousands of journalists write millions of words every week trying to do it, so your chances of avoiding cliche are very slim. And you're trying to write fiction, not a match report.
Mal Peet
#14. If you want to give the devil a message, write it on the bottom of your shoes.
Andrew Wommack
#15. Sometimes I write drunk and revise sober, and sometimes I write sober and revise drunk. But you have to have both elements in creation - the Apollonian and the Dionysian, or spontaneity and restraint, emotion and discipline.
Peter De Vries
#16. To be a good writer, you not only have to write a great deal but you have to care. You do not have to have a complicated moral philosophy. But a writer always tries, I think, to be a part of a solution, to understand a little about life and to pass this on.
Anne Lamott
#17. Nobody thinks mystery writers go around killing people, but they always seem to assume singers are singing about themselves, especially if you write melancholy songs like me.
Del Shannon
#18. You can curse the darkness, or you can dispel it.
A.D. Posey
#19. When the Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He sees not what you lost or won, but how you played the game!
A.A. Khan
#20. I wanted to badly to be vulnerable over a burger, beer, and bags of free books we find on some stranger's porch. You wanted badly to be touched some thousand miles away and never found the time to write me back.
Darnell Lamont Walker
#21. I don't care what you write man, just make sure you make us sound sexy. Say that we looked like we'd just come from the beach and that our bodies were glistening. Say we got no hair on our chests. Anything so the girls will like us.
Nathan Followill
#22. So I'm gonna write it down to scream it out, and I'm never gonna be the same again. Fear is the color you've all exposed, now I gotta get up here and prove the importance of my clothes of my pose. I suppose, again.
Tegan Quin
#23. Your good friends can write a book on you; but Your best friends can create an embarrassing full fledged 3 hours movie on you, with silliest jingles and animation made ever.
Vikrmn
#24. There are two kinds of love. One kind you live with, the other you write poetry about.
Debasish Mridha
#25. Read every sentence you write out loud. If it sounds boring, kill it.
James Altucher
#26. I think all characters are facets of the writer. In a way, they have to be if you're going to write them convincingly.
Ruth Ozeki
#27. You are the poem I never knew how to write and this life is the story I have always wanted to tell.
Tyler Knott Gregson
#28. Often turn the stile [correct with care], if you expect to write anything worthy of being read twice.
[Lat., Saepe stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint Scripturus.]
Horace
#29. It's very common for people to recommend something to me because they're going on what I've already written, when, what really is the case, is that you want to write about something you haven't written about, in ways that you haven't done before.
Tom Stoppard
#30. People talk differently. You can say some things some places you can't say in other places. But me as a film maker, no words are ever going to be off limits in something I write. As long as people use the words, I'm going to report that.
Dax Shepard
#31. You should give it to Max, Liesel. See if you can leave it on the bedside table, like all the other things." Liesel watched him as if he'd gone insane. "How, though?" Lightly, he tapped her skull with his knuckles. "Memorize it. Then write it down for him.
Markus Zusak
#33. Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now.
Ernest Hemingway,
#34. I've heard Stephen King say that when you write a novel you end up revealing everything about yourself.
Ernest Cline
#35. TV's not the problem, and I'm tired of it being posed as this antithesis to creativity and productivity. If TV's getting in your way of writing a book, then you don't want to write a book bad enough.
Andrea Seigel
#36. I have always felt that the truth is prophetic, and that if you describe precisely what you see and give it life with your imagination, then what you write ought to have lasting value, no matter what the mood of your prose.
Paul Theroux
#37. By the time you write the last page you have done half the book. The other half tends to get done in about five weeks; I do several drafts, very, very furiously rewriting. I literally do more or less nothing else and I stick with it and go through it and I begin to hate it.
Terry Pratchett
#38. You know what I say to people when I hear they're writing anti-war books? I say 'Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?
Kurt Vonnegut
#39. The day you write to please everyone you no longer are in journalism. You are in show business.
Frank Miller
#40. The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us ...
Miriam Makeba
#41. It's about you putting in the work, practicing every day, and hopefully one day you write the song the whole world wants to get down to. And one day you're going to be sitting next to Ellen DeGeneres talking about how you broke records and rocked the Super Bowl!
Bruno Mars
#42. You write a lot of books; you hope you get better.
Alan Furst
#43. A screenplay is really a blueprint for something that will be filmed. Therefore you must always keep in mind that whatever you write is going to be staged, for real.
D.J. MacHale
#44. Learn the writer's craft, write regularly, grow to love the practice for its own sake-and inspiration will either come on a particular day or it won't, but you'll have prepared the way for it.
Dennis Palumbo
#45. If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.
V.S. Naipaul
#46. I miss you so much. Maybe if I say your name over and over again, it will eventually feel wrong to me. Like a word you write too many times suddenly doesn't look right anymore. I will try that.
Kate McGahan
#47. You write for two people, yourself and your audience, who are usually better educated and at least as smart.
Tony Hillerman
#48. You know what talent is? The curse of expectation. As a kid you have to deal with that, beat it somehow. If you can write, you think God put you on earth to blow Shakespeare away. Or if you can paint, maybe you think
I did
that God put you on earth to blow your father away.
Stephen King
#49. I like writing for other people. I love it. It's great because you write it and then you hand it off to someone else. But in terms of directing, anything I direct will be something I've written or re-written. I'm in no crazy rush to direct.
Nicholas Stoller
#50. A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.
Bill Gates
#51. Every time you do something that is important, write down what you expect will happen.
Peter Drucker
#52. Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!
Gore Vidal
#53. It takes almost as much imagination to justify what you write as it does to write it.
Stephen Sondheim
#54. You don't learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that truly matters to you.
Ralph Fletcher
#55. Just Keep Writing! Who cares if it's a Saturday, or if you left your laptop at home, or if you're around people? Just write one word, one line, jot down one idea. No matter how little you write, it's movement in the right direction. Forward. Toward completion.
Tammy Ferebee
#56. It's really hard when people write nasty things about you all the time. As much as good things are said about you, it's always those one or two bad comments that really stay with you and gnaw at you. I try not to read that stuff if I can.
Jordin Sparks
#57. You can write and visualize goals all you want, but if you do not take action, your goals will never become a reality. To obtain a goal you have never before achieved will require tasks you have never before done.
Cameron C. Taylor
#58. You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?
Melina Marchetta
#59. God has given every man an opportunity and a chance to re-write his or her story; it is up to you to use a blunt pen or a ball point . I have chosen a ball point and this is just the beginning.
Bayode Ojo
#60. He can read and write, but he doesn't get what he's read. He's half-baked. The country is full of people like him, I'll tell you that. And we entrust our glourious parliamentary democracy
Aravind Adiga
#61. People have said to me, You can't write songs. You can't play an instrument. But I've got 10 gold records.
Sonny Bono
#62. Write what you want to write; don't fear about who will read it.
Debasish Mridha
#63. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
Rainer Maria Rilke
#64. Life is this great big blackboard, and on it you write all the things that you do.
Elizabeth Edwards
#65. When you teach, it's sometimes necessary to consciously not write for a month or two - and then pick a time in the future to sink back in. It makes you less frustrated and more in control. I do best when I give myself breaks and come back hungry.
Tom Barbash
#66. The problem in society is not kids not knowing science. The problem is adults not knowing science. They outnumber kids 5 to 1, they wield power, they write legislation. When you have scientifically illiterate adults, you have undermined the very fabric of what makes a nation wealthy and strong.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
#67. If you're going to write about war, which my books are about, wars are nasty things. I think it's sort of a cheap, easy way out to write a war story in which no one ultimately dies.
George R R Martin
#68. It's not unusual for writers to look backward. Because that's your pool of resources. If you were to write something now, I bet there's a pretty good chance you'd call on your teenage years, your experiences then, stuff you learned then.
Paul McCartney
#69. Because I'm an art historian, I have some experience of writing that comes out of close attention. That's what really art history is. You're looking at something very closely, and you try to write in a meticulous way about it.
Teju Cole
#70. When I write, I'm looking to turn you on and tell a good story. No more, no less. No lofty goals here.
Kirsten McCurran
#71. One of the surprising things I hadn't expected when I decided to write crime fiction is how much you are expected to be out in front of the public. Some writers aren't comfortable with that. I don't have a problem with that.
Kathy Reichs
#72. If you ever want to know why I'm not on a record label, look at 'The X Factor!' Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions.
John Lydon
#73. I always wanted to write when I was a kid; it just never occurred to me that you could have a job that didn't involve any actual work ... I felt it would be fun to have a job like that where you could make stuff up and be irresponsible and get paid for it.
Dave Barry
#74. You write to be read. That is the bottom line.
Jane Yolen
#75. I look around. You'd have to be out of your fucking mind to write, as Marcus did, that Black History Month is a ploy to lever more entitlement money out of Congress, but the ho-hum nonresponse of the white crowd reading this bit of transparent insanity is, to me, even weirder.
Matt Taibbi
#76. I always wanted praise, and I always wanted attention; I won't lie to you. I was a jazz critic, and that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted people to write about me, not me about them. So I thought, 'What could I do? I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't act or anything like that. OK, I can write.'
Harvey Pekar
#77. I'm still learning so much with every play I write. So I wrestle with word choice, rhythm in final drafts. I think you have to be ruthless.
Stephen Karam
#78. You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it? Yes. Mrs. Whatsit said. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.
Madeleine L'Engle
#79. You will find the greatest happiness in letting yourself be.
A.D. Posey
#80. If you write a half hour a day it makes a lot of writing year by year.
Gertrude Stein
#81. When you write about what you dream, you become a writer.
When you dream about what you write, you become haunted by a curse.
A. Saleh
#82. Write yourself a permission slip to be surprised by someone's potential. Who knows? One day that person could be you.
Sherri Shepherd
#83. Half the rhymes you write, you're saying that you're better than the other MC. That's how we keep the craft sharp.
Ice-T
#84. In Endless Quest books, you start the plot, and the character has to make choices. Then you have to write one choice over here, one choice over there. The author might get one or two choices out.
Margaret Weis
#85. If you would be remembered, write a book worth the reading or live a life worth the writing about.
Benjamin Franklin
#86. The muse holds no appointments. You can never call on it. I don't understand people who get up at 9 o'clock in the morning, put on the coffee and sit down to write.
Glen Hansard
#87. I've learned this, that haters wanna hate. You could sing a song perfectly, you could write the songs perfectly, and some people are absolutely going to hate you.
Carrie Underwood
#88. Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to.
W. Somerset Maugham
#89. When we think we have something to say we are usually wrong. We are fooling ourselves. Trip into discovery. Don't write what you know, discover something new.
Marie Howe
#90. I'm not like some other writers: I have no actual urgent need or desire to add to what's written. You write it; if you're lucky, it's performed, and that's the end of the whole thing.
Tom Stoppard
#91. As I write, there is a craze for what is called psychoanalysis, or the cure of diseases by explaining to the patient what is the matter with him: an excellent plan if you happen to know what is the matter with him, especially when the explanation is that there is nothing the matter with him.
George Bernard Shaw
#92. You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet, because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist.
Bob Dylan
#93. No one can write like Vallejo and not sound like a fraud. He's just too much himself and not you.
Philip Levine
#94. You don't need to know the purpose as you write, but when you read over something you've written, you should be able to point to any given element - be that a line of dialogue, a descriptive phrase, a plot point - and say why it's there.
Diana Gabaldon
#95. At the end of the day, it's really, really difficult to make a brand-new show, to write a pilot where you have to introduce characters and everyone has to kind of be dynamic and have something different for themselves.
Missy Peregrym
#96. I'm in a business where there's complete anarchy. You can't control it - you can only react to it. The control that people traditionally had over their message is gone. Look at Wikileaks: you have to approach everything you write on the basis it's going to be on the front page of the newspaper.
Martin Sorrell
#97. Our doubts are traitors and make us
lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt. In other words, a
wish is a good place to start but then you have to get off your butt and make it
happen. You have to pick up a quill and write your own damn story. (Mimi Wallingford)
Suzanne Selfors
#98. To take part in the African revolution, it is not enough to write a revolutionary song. You must fashion the revolution with the people. And if you fashion it with the people, the songs will come by themselves.
Ahmed Sekou Toure
#99. I think it's hard to really write a song that will educate someone because songs are meant to be ... you don't want to be too didactic in a song because it doesn't make for good music. And I think the role of songs can be to inspire people but there needs to education and prose to back that up.
John Legend
#100. If you're a writer, write. You just keep writing. And if you're a filmmaker, you keep doing what you can to keep telling your stories; you don't stay on the one. Keep moving forward and doing what you can to tell whatever story you can tell, be it via writing, be it via filming it.
Dana Brunetti
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