213 Writes Quotes

Following is our list of writes quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about finishing writing a book.

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Famous Writes Quotes

Architecture is like writing. You have to edit it over and over so it looks effortless — Zaha Hadid

Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter. - African Proverbs

Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter. — African Proverbs

Build your own pyramids, write your own hieroglyphs. — Kendrick Lamar

Write your Sad times in Sand,
Write your Good times in Stone. - George Bernard Shaw

Write your Sad times in Sand, Write your Good times in Stone. — George Bernard Shaw

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. — Martin Luther

Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. — Franz Kafka

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. — Alvin Toffler

We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us. — Vladimir Lenin

You know, it really doesn`t matter what the media write as long as you`ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass. — Donald Trump

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Short Writes Quotes

  • We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. — Jawaharlal Nehru
  • Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist. — Pablo Picasso
  • We write our names in the sand: and then the waves roll in and wash them away. — Augustus
  • And the writing is still : to you, with you, about you, because of you and for you. — Nizar Qabbani
  • Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy. — Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
  • All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. — Leo Tolstoy
  • Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it. — Matsuo Basho
  • Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. — Mayer Amschel Rothschild
  • Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true. — Langston Hughes
  • Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you. — Marsha Norman

Writes Image Quotes

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. - Ernest Hemingway quote

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. — Ernest Hemingway

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I be off the slave ships, building pyramids, writing my own hieroglyphs - Kendrick Lamar quote

I be off the slave ships, building pyramids, writing my own hieroglyphs — Kendrick Lamar

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. - Francis Bacon quote

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. — Francis Bacon

The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience. - Arthur Schopenhauer quote

The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience. — Arthur Schopenhauer

To write well and speak well is mere vanity if one does not live well. - Bridget of Sweden quote

To write well and speak well is mere vanity if one does not live well. — Bridget of Sweden

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing. - Norman Mailer quote

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing. — Norman Mailer

I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world. - Sadako Sasaki quote

I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world. — Sadako Sasaki

I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous. - Keith Richards quote

I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous. — Keith Richards

Sophisticated ignorance, write my curses in cursive. - Kanye West quote

Sophisticated ignorance, write my curses in cursive. — Kanye West

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. - Ray Bradbury quote

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. — Ray Bradbury

Cinematography is a writing with images in mouvement and with sounds. - Robert Bresson quote

Cinematography is a writing with images in mouvement and with sounds. — Robert Bresson

I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise. - Richard Brautigan quote

I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise. — Richard Brautigan

I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind. - Patrick Dennis quote

I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind. — Patrick Dennis

A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it. - Edgar Allan Poe quote

A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it. — Edgar Allan Poe

Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes. - Carl Sandburg quote

Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes. — Carl Sandburg

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems. - Wislawa Szymborska quote

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems. — Wislawa Szymborska

Write something, even if it's just a suicide note. - Gore Vidal quote

Write something, even if it's just a suicide note. — Gore Vidal

I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list. - Susan Sontag quote

I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list. — Susan Sontag

People shout out for songs and I don't even remember writing them. - Bobby Womack quote

People shout out for songs and I don't even remember writing them. — Bobby Womack

Writes quote There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's book and write your ow
There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's book and write your own.

Inspirational Quotes

Religion is for people who fear hell, spirituality is for people who have been there. — David Bowie

One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life. — Kahlil Gibran

Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly - Paulo Coelho

Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly — Paulo Coelho

Writes quote Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. — Helen Keller

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds — Paul the Apostle

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. — John Quincy Adams

Writes quote Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.
Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.

If God is for us, who can be against us? — Paul the Apostle

The POSITIVE THINKER sees the INVISIBLE, feels the INTANGIBLE, and achieves the IMPOSSIBLE. — Winston Churchill

I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them. — Madam C. J. Walker

Every day may not be good... but there's something good in every day — Alice Morse Earle

Finishing Writing A Book Quotes

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don't know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying - please let me live until I am finished. — Haruki Murakami

We're writing a book together. She just finished one. Did you read it? Among the Porcupines? — Walter Matthau

I will never stop writing. People often ask when I will retire, but I say it's none of their business. Writing defines who I am. I love the feeling of holding a finished book in my hands, and then I can't wait to start the great adventure of writing the next one. — Barbara Taylor Bradford

Writes quote Write hard and clear about what hurts.
Write hard and clear about what hurts.

I don't care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book. — Roald Dahl

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it. — Samuel Johnson

I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished. — Baron de Montesquieu

Writes quote Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

At that time, I had recently finished a book called Amazing Grace, which many people tell me is a very painful book to read. Well, if it was painful to read, it was also painful to write. I had pains in my chest for two years while I was writing that book. — Jonathan Kozol

I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged...I had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out. — Erica Jong

A book is not only written - after it's finished it starts writing you, the writer. You become its notebook, its sheet of paper on which it forces you to think and rethink your original ideas, your topics, your research, actually everything. — Sasa Stanisic

Yes, it has made me happier. Finishing them has made me happier. Before I wrote the Potter books, I'd never finished a novel. I came close to finishing two. — J. K. Rowling

Writing A New Book Quotes

The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals. — Melody Beattie

I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen. — Augusten Burroughs

The only difference between men and women is that women are able to create new little human beings in their bodies while simultaneously writing books, driving tractors, working in offices, planting crops - in general, doing everything men do. — Erica Jong

Writes quote Your life is your story. Write well. Edit often.
Your life is your story. Write well. Edit often.

Children are like a book which we should write in and which we should read. — Peter Rosegger

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does. — Groucho Marx

I think we're on a journey....It was very easy to write about my past in my book, but writing about the present is all a new chapter. I hope that people find this journey fascinating, informative and educational. — Donna Karan

Writes quote A good friend knows all your stories. A best friend helped you write them.
A good friend knows all your stories. A best friend helped you write them.

Most established novelists are writing books informed by experiences gained in their youth. Middle age is not the best time to be changing smartphones every six months or adopting new technology platforms - because we tend to get slower and less accommodating to change as we age. — Charles Stross

If you write chick lit, and if you're a New Yorker, and if your book becomes the topic of pop-culture fascination, the paper might make dismissive and ignorant mention of your book. If you write romance, forget about it. You'll be lucky if they spell your name right on the bestseller list. — Jennifer Weiner

A new regulation for the publishing industry: "The advance for a book must be larger than the check for the lunch at which it was discussed. — Calvin Trillin

I stop and think before I start a new book and ask myself do I really want to spend the next year or two or three with these characters because if I don't, then I shouldn't be writing about them. — Judy Blume

What Are Book Quotes

Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists... When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence. — Edmond de Goncourt

Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn't what we see but what we are. — Fernando Pessoa

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go. — Dr. Seuss

Writes quote Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be. Not all the books on all the shelves - but what the teachers are themselves. — Rudyard Kipling

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I am very happy to be alive. There is much fun to be had. Music, movies, books, paintings, drawingsI hope you have these things where you are. If you have them, what does the real world matter anyway? — John Frusciante

That's what books are for... to travel without moving an inch. - Jhumpa Lahiri

That's what books are for... to travel without moving an inch. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Even today, what to study and how to study it are more important than where to study it and for how long. The best teachers are on the Internet. The best books are on the Internet. The best peers are on the Internet. The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce. — Naval Ravikant

No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are. — Eric Hoffer

Boys think girls are like books, If the cover doesn't catch their eye they won't bother to read what's inside". — Marilyn Monroe

Can I Write A Book Of Quotes

I like writing books. I'd rather be at home with my wife. I can write, take a break, come out, have a glass of tea, give my wife a kiss, and go back in and write some more. It's not so bad. I am really lucky. — Gene Wilder

I don't think there's much point in bemoaning the state of the world unless there's some way you can think of to improve it. Otherwise, don't bother writing a book; go and find a tropical island and lie in the sun. — Peter Singer

I'm going to write a book someday and the title will be I'm an Ass, You're an Ass. That's the most liberating, wonderful thing in the world, when you openly admit you're an ass. It's wonderful. When people tell me, You're wrong I say, What can you expect of an ass? — Anthony De Mello

Writes quote You have the itch for writing born in you. It's quite incurable. What are you going to do with it?
You have the itch for writing born in you. It's quite incurable. What are you going to do with it?

No one I know of has ever had this experience-where you had to sit and wait and wait for a DNA test to come back just so you can write the last page of the book. — Joseph Wambaugh

I can't imagine writing a book without some strong female characters, unless that was a demand of the setting. I actually tend to suspect that in real life, there have always been very strong female characters, but at certain stages of society, they've been asked to cool it. — William Gibson

I'm 100 percent original, and that's what got me here. My rap music is more understandable, slower. It tells a story. You can write a book on each of my thoughts. — Tupac Shakur

Writes quote If they give you lined paper, write the other way.
If they give you lined paper, write the other way.

I usually write about ordinary people and ordinary things, but Paul Farmer is the least ordinary person I've ever met... He's the leader of a small group of people who hope to cure a sick world, and I hope my book can help in some small way. — Tracy Kidder

I've sold too many books to get good reviews anymore. There's a lot of jealousy, because [reviewers] think they can write a good novel or a best-seller and get frustrated when they can't. I've learned to despise them. — John Grisham

A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I'll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I'm crepuscular. — Christopher Hitchens

A man can write one book that can be great, but this doesn't make him a great writer-just the writer of a great book. . . I think a writer has to extend very widely, as well as plunge very deep, to be a great novelist. — Anthony Burgess

What Are Quotes

I love you, not for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. - Roy Croft

I love you, not for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. — Roy Croft

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. — Albert Schweitzer

We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. — Aristotle

Writes quote Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.. You need to start somewhere.
Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.. You need to start somewhere.

The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done. — Jean Piaget

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. — John Wooden

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way. — Martin Luther King

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. - Malcolm Stevenson Forbes

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. — Malcolm Stevenson Forbes

A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow. — William Shakespeare

Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage. — Winston Churchill

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. - Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. — Mahatma Gandhi

Being A Writer Quotes

I'm not a lyric writer to make statements. What I enjoy doing is making paintings with lyrics, creating colorful images. I think that's more what entertainment and music should be. — Chris Cornell

I am dumbfounded that there hasn't been a crackdown with the libel and slander laws on some of these would-be writers and reporters on the Internet. — Walter Cronkite

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork. - Peter De Vries

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork. — Peter De Vries

You may not be good at hand-to-hand sales, but you may be a really good writer. — Naval Ravikant

The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing. Isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination, consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing, and soul-crushing inadequacy. And that’s on a good day. — Robert De Niro

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

Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive. — Marya Mannes

Do you want to be an artist and a writer, or a wife and a lover? With kids, your focus changes. I don't want to go to PTA meetings. — Stevie Nicks

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be. — Mario Vargas Llosa

When the first-rate author wants an exquisite heroine or a lovely morning, he finds that all the superlatives have been worn shoddy by his inferiors. It should be a rule that bad writers must start with plain heroines and ordinary mornings, and, if they are able, work up to something better. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Teaching Writing Quotes

Between rounds of speed chess I read enough of a programming manual to teach myself to write programs on the school's DEC mainframe in the language Basic. — Eric Allin Cornell

I have devoted my energies to the study of the scriptures, observing monastic discipline, and singing the daily services in church; study, teaching, and writing have always been my delight. — Venerable Bede

It took me about three years to write About Grace. I wasn't teaching two of those years, so I was working eight-hour days, five days a week. And it would include research and reading - it wasn't just a blank page, laying down words. — Anthony Doerr

James Franco, acting, teaching, directing, writing, producing, photography, soundtracks, editing - is there anything you can do? — Natasha Leggero

Teach your students real-world writing purposes, add a teacher who models his or her struggles with the writing process, throw in lots of real-world mentor texts for students to emulate, and give our kids the time necessary to enable them to stretch as writers. — Kelly Gallagher

It's very hard to teach someone how to write a song if to begin with there's no creative crop to harvest. — Barry Mann

Children do not learn in school; they are babysat. It takes maybe 50 hours to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. After that, students can teach themselves. Mainly what school does is to keep the children off the streets and out of the job market. — John Taylor Gatto

If you are not a writer, you will not understand the difficulties of writing. If you are not a writer, you will not know the fears and hopes of the writers you teach. — Mem Fox

Teach yourself to work in uncertainty. — Bernard Malamud

I myself have read the writings and teachings of the heretics, polluting my soul for a while with their abominable notions, though deriving this benefit: I was able to refute them for myself and loathe them even more. — Eusebius

How To Publish A Book Of Quotes

Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject ... they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules. — Isaac Asimov

I wrote a little autobiography about how luck has to do with everything. It's called "My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business." A publisher came to me and said write a book so I did. I wanted to call it "Everybody Else Has Got a Book." — Dick Van Dyke

I think it's very, very, very hard to get a book published. I never want to be one of those teachers that say, 'don't do this, ' because how sad would the world be if people didn't create art and write? But, it's not an easy journey being a writer. — Alyson Richman

My memoir is being published by Beaufort Books and will be available fall of 2015. Its about my unusual life as a child actor and how I made the unpopular choice to leave Hollywood, grow up, and stop pretending. — Lisa Jakub

Ebooks have many advantages - publishers don't have to make guesses about how many books to print, books need never go "out of print", and hard-to-find books can be easily available. So far, the only limitation seems to be finding a way for the writer to be paid. — Kate Grenville

I think a lot of awesome stuff is coming out with smaller presses. Small presses don't have to have huge board meetings to talk about how to market their books or what to publish - they can take more chances. They can help new authors grow in a healthier, often more artistic way. — Kevin Sampsell

I learned that you have to respect how much time and work a writer has put into their book. I always give the writer I'm publishing a good deal of control in shaping the book and figuring out how it looks, but I'll make suggestions on how to make it stronger. — Kevin Sampsell

Anybody who writes a book is an optimist. First of all, they think they're going to finish it. Second, they think somebody's going to publish it. Third, they think somebody's going to read it. Fourth, they think somebody's going to like it. How optimistic is that? — Margaret Atwood

Writing Process Quotes

I hate writing, I love having written. - Dorothy Parker

I hate writing, I love having written. — Dorothy Parker

I shall not be deterred by people who don't see where the future of Africa lies. It is the short-sighted people who put their opinions in writing. They don't understand that the future of all countries lies in processing. — Yoweri Museveni

The ambivalence of writing is such that it can be considered both an act and an interpretive process that follows after an act with which it cannot coincide. As such, it both affirms and denies its own nature. — Paul De Man

Composing is a natural fit. As far as the creative process goes, I'd rather do this than anything else, by far. Something different happened to me when I started to write music to images. It was a feeling of excitement and connection and a sense of being in the right place that I never had before. — James Newton Howard

Writing, for me, means humility. It’s a process that involves fear and doubt, especially if you’re writing honestly. — Kiran Desai

Writing is a struggle against silence. - Carlos Fuentes

Writing is a struggle against silence. — Carlos Fuentes

And I've always loved commercials. I like working out how to organically weave a brand's message into the writing process. It's like an improv show, where comics ask the audience to throw out a word and a skit is built around it. — Jason Bateman

You need to know a little about a lot to write a book. The amount of research that goes into it- it's just not the ideas that come out of your head. You need to have specifics and 80,000 words. — James Murray

As you continue writing and rewriting, you begin to see possibilities you hadn't seen before. Writing a poem is always a process of discovery. — Robert Hayden

My feeling is that poetry is also a healing process, and then when a person tries to write poetry with depth or beauty, he will find himself guided along paths which will heal him, and this is more important, actually, than any of the poetry he writes. — Robert Bly

Starting To Write Quotes

I start to think, and then I sink Into the paper like I was ink When I'm writing, I'm trapped in between the lines I escape when I finish the rhyme. — Rakim

You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion. — L. Ron Hubbard

Mr. Hitler was big on me. He kept writing and inviting me to come to Germany, and if the war hadn't started when it did, I would have gone and I would have taken a gun out of my purse and shot him, because I am the only person who would not have been searched. — Sayings

I would, however, start writing fiction about 10 years before I actually did, because it's such great fun to do, many times more creative than nonfiction. — Judith Krantz

I am often asked why I started to write poetry. The answer is that my motivation sprang from a visceral need to creatively articulate the experiences of the black youth of my generation, coming of age in a racist society. — Linton Kwesi Johnson

Sure, I have advice for people starting to write. Don't. I don't need the competition. — Robert B. Parker

I'm probably writing music now for the same reason as I started writing songs when I was 14 - to meet women. — Billy Joel

you don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great. — Les Brown

It's tough to start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading and re-living the last one. Grab the pen of life and start writing the next one. — Patrick Bet-David

If you haven't got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you'll only have to throw away the first three pages. — William Campbell Gault

Writing Nonfiction Quotes

Beyond that, I seem to be compelled to write science fiction, rather than fantasy or mysteries or some other genre more likely to climb onto bestseller lists even though I enjoy reading a wide variety of literature, both fiction and nonfiction. — Joan D. Vinge

It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer. — E. O. Wilson

When I'm writing fiction I'm thinking, God, this is so hard - I have to make all this stuff up! I wish I were writing a nonfiction book where all the facts are laid out and I don't have to be so much at sea. — Douglas Preston

There is always a certain leap of faith that editors have made with their nonfiction writers. If the trust is broken, things can get very embarrassing for the writers and the publisher. — A. Scott Berg

Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing. — Joan Didion

In fiction, when you paint yourself into a corner, you can write a pair of suction cups onto the bottoms of your shoes and walk up the wall and out the skylight and see the sun breaking through the clouds. In nonfiction, you don't have that luxury. — Tom Robbins

One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material. — William Zinsser

He would write it for the reason he felt that all great literature, fiction and nonfiction, was written: truth comes out, in the end it always comes out. He would write it because he felt he had to. — Stephen King

Writing fiction is for me a fraught business, an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel, and sometimes all the way through. The work process is totally different from writing nonfiction. You have to sit down every day and make it up. — Joan Didion

I like to get paid for doing basic research, so it's pleasant to write some nonfiction about it. — Bruce Sterling

Writing Life Quotes

We need to have music that contributes to the well-being of the spirit. Music that cradles people's lives and makes things a little easier. That's what I try to do, and what I want to do. You don't want to close the door on hope. — Merle Haggard

You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing. — Richard P. Feynman

If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end. — Michel Foucault

I write ... in order to help ensure that the teeming millions in the New World, for whose sins Christ gave His life, do not continue to die in ignorance, but rather are brought to knowledge of God and thereby saved. — Bartolome de las Casas

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words. - Victor Hugo

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words. — Victor Hugo

I am the author of my life. Unfortunately, I am writing in pen and can’t erase my mistakes. — Bill Kaulitz

To gain your own voice you have to forget about having it heard. — Allen Ginsberg

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

I think that every decision I make in my life is based off of an emotion - and it definitely hurts me in some situations, and helps in some situations, like obviously writing and stuff is my favourite thing to do because I get to use all of my emotions and express them in that way. — Melanie Martinez

She would smile and show no surprise, convinced as she was, the same as I, that casual meetings are apt to be just the opposite, and that people who make dates are the same kind who need lines on their writing paper, or who always squeeze up from the bottom on a tube of toothpaste. — Julio Cortazar

Novel Writing Quotes

Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as Persuasion but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say, 'Collecting material'. No one can object to that. — Stella Gibbons

But compared to writing a novel, where you can be God, I did the Bay of Pigs invasion in six pages once, and there were 50,000 guys with boots that I didn't have to pay, and all those extras; we didn't have to pay them. — John Sayles

Writing a novel is not method acting and I find it easy to step out of it at cocktail hour. — Bret Easton Ellis

Architecture is a discipline that takes time and patience. If one spends enough years writing complex novels one might be able, someday, to construct a respectable haiku. — Thom Mayne

I began writing 'Matterhorn' in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript. — Karl Marlantes

When I put together a graphic novel, I don't think about literary prose. I think about storytelling. — Ted Rall

If I had to rank my skills, I have a long way to go before I can write a good graphic novel. — Ted Rall

Novel writing should never be confused with journalism. Unfortunately, in the case of Primary Colors, a fair number of journalists confused. — Joe Klein

Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it. — J. G. Ballard

Doing graphic novels is cool! It's fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out. — Anthony Bourdain

Writing History Quotes

History should not be left to the historians. Rather, be like Churchill. Make history, and then write it. — Ferdinand Marcos

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

History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it. - Winston Churchill

History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it. — Winston Churchill

When you write a two thousand page history of the Second World War, the deportations and the concentration camps will take up five pages, and the gas chambers perhaps 20 lines. — Jean-Marie Le Pen

To write history is as important as to make history. It is an unchanging truth that if the writer does not remain true to the maker, then it takes on a quality that will confuse humanity. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The main thing is to make history, not to write it. — Otto von Bismarck

If I had to write down the most important people in the history of this planet, No.1 would be (abolitionist) John Brown. Why? Because he's a white man who said he would die for the cause, because they could take him, but they weren't going to take his grandchildren. That brother was beautiful. — Dick Gregory

What is history? Its beginning is that of the centuries of systematic work devoted to the solution of the enigma of death, so that death itself may eventually be overcome. That is why people write symphonies, and why they discover mathematical infinity and electromagnetic waves. — Boris Pasternak

I got expelled from high school, and then did my exams from home. I decided, through that experience, that I was going to expediate my plan and didn't go to university. Instead, I went to a community college and studied the theory and history of film with the idea that I wanted to write and direct. — Charlie Hunnam

Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? 1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. 2) Advising the President. 3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin. — David Letterman

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More Writes Quotes

I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky. - Sharon Olds quote

I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky. — Sharon Olds

A lot of songs you write are just for exercise - just pencil sharpeners. - Harlan Howard quote

A lot of songs you write are just for exercise - just pencil sharpeners. — Harlan Howard

Ira Gershwin, shame on him. I mean, some of the writing. - Joni Mitchell quote

Ira Gershwin, shame on him. I mean, some of the writing. — Joni Mitchell

I hate government. I'm apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican. - Bruce Willis quote

I hate government. I'm apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican. — Bruce Willis

When I say "work" I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs. - Margaret Laurence quote

When I say "work" I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs. — Margaret Laurence

it wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. - Ernest Hemingway quote

it wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. — Ernest Hemingway

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living. - Harold Pinter quote

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living. — Harold Pinter

The only reason to write is from love. - Stephen Sondheim quote

The only reason to write is from love. — Stephen Sondheim

He writes so well he makes me feel like putting my quill back in my goose. - Fred Allen quote

He writes so well he makes me feel like putting my quill back in my goose. — Fred Allen

Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing. - Sylvia Plath quote

Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing. — Sylvia Plath

When you're rich, you don't write checks. Straight cash, homey. - Randy Moss quote

When you're rich, you don't write checks. Straight cash, homey. — Randy Moss

Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give. — William Arthur Ward

In Conclusion

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