samuel johnson, 1709-1784 composition is, for the most part, an act of slow diligence to which the...
TRANSCRIPT
Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784
Composition is, for the most part, an act of slow diligence to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution.
Winston Churchill, 1874-1965
History will be kind to me – for I intend to write it.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1904-91
The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend.
Dorothy Parker, 1893-1967
This is not a book that should be tossed lightly aside. It should be hurled with great force.
Ursula K. Le Guin, 1929-
The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.
Louise Brooks, 1906-85
Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination.
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
My ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in an entire book.
Elmore Leonard,1925-
My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.
Gloria Steinem, 1934-
Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.
Truman Capote, 1924-84
I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.
Blaise Pascal, 1623-62
I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
Toni Morrison, 1931-
If there is a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
Lord Acton, 1834-1902
Learn as much by writing as by reading.
Moses Hadas, 1900-1966
Thank you for sending me your book. I shall waste no time reading it.
Robert Heinlein, 1907-88
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Flannery O’Connor, 1925-64
Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
Jack London, 1876-1916
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Madeleine L’Engle, 1918-
Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.
Wilson Mizner, 1876-1933
When you take stuff from one writer, it's plagiarism. But when you take it from many writers, it's research.
Thomas Mann, 1875-1955
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Kingsley Amis, 1922-95
If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.
Walter Bagehot, 1826-1877
The reason so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
Robert Frost, 1874-1963
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
Richard Peck
Writing is communication, not self-expression. Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother.
Jessamyn West, 1902-84
Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.
Benjamin Franklin, 1706-90
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784
The two most engaging powers of an author are, to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.
Susan Sontag, 1933-2004
Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.
Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900
I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
Isaac Asimov, 1920-92
If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I'd type a little faster.
Ezra Pound, 1885-1972
Literature is news that STAYS news.
Agatha Christie, 1890-1976
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.
Cyril Connolly, 1903-74
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once.
Albert Camus, 1913-60
Bad authors write with respect to an inner context that the reader cannot know.
Molière, 1622-1673
I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.
Katherine Anne Porter, 1890-1980
Most people won’t realize that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else.
John Steinbeck, 1902-68
The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.
Alexander Pope, 1688-1744
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
Don Marquis, 1878-1937
i never think at all when i write –nobody can do two things at the same timeand do them both well.
E. M. Forster, 1879-1970
How do I know what I think until I see what I say?
Anais Nin, 1903-77
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.
Mark Twain, 1835-1910
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.
Pliny the Younger, 61-105 A.D.
There is nothing to write about, you say. Well then, write and let me know just this – that there is nothing to write about.
Rebecca West, 1892-1983
Journalism – an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space.
Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784
Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
Lillian Hellman, 1905-1984
If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.
Raymond Chandler, 1870-1959
When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.
Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961
The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof s**t detector.
Easy writing makes curst hard reading.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1751-1816
Writing is the supreme solace.
W. Somerset Maugham, 1874-1965
Chamfort, 1741-94
Most of today’s books have an air of having been written in one day from books read the night before.
To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.
Herman Melville, 1819-91
The first chapter sells the book. The last chapter sells the next book.
Mickey Spillane, 1918-
Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.
Willa Cather, 1873-1947
There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821-81
Writing, when properly managed, is but a different name for conversation.
Laurence Sterne, 1713-68
There is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, happy accident.
H. L. Mencken, 1880-1956