Quotes and Sayings About Writing
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Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.
-- A. A. Milne -
If the English language had been properly organized ... then there would be a word which meant both 'he' and 'she', and I could write, 'If John or Mary comes heesh will want to play tennis', which would save a lot of trouble.
-- A. A. Milne -
This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it.
-- A. A. Milne -
My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.
-- A. A. Milne -
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The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.
-- A. B. Yehoshua -
Because of a friend, life is a little stronger, fuller, more gracious thing for the friend's existence, whether he be near or far. If the friend is close at hand, that is best; but if he is far away he still is there to think of, to wonder about, to hear from, to write to, to share life and experience with, to serve, to honor, to admire, to love.
-- A. C. Benson -
Back in the days when American billboard advertising was in flower [said Hemingway], there were two slogans that I always rated above all others: the old Cremo Cigar ad that proclaimed, Spit Is a Horrid Word-but Worse on the end of Your Cigar, and Drink Schlitz in Brown Bottles and Avoid that Skunk Taste. You don't get creative writing like that any more.
-- A. E. HotchnerSource : A. E. Hotchner (2010). “The Good Life According to Hemingway”, p.11, Harper Collins
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He [Hemingway] used a stand-up work place he had fashioned out of the top of of a bookcase near his bed. His portable typewriter was snugged in there and papers were spread along the top of the bookcase on either side of it. He used a reading board for longhand writing.
-- A. E. HotchnerSource : A. E. Hotchner (2009). “Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir”, p.14, Da Capo Press
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Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
-- A. E. Housman -
I had casually rented an apartment that cost $75 a month because I expected my writing to pay my way.
-- A. E. van Vogt -
It came about as follows: over the years when I was involved in dianetics, I wrote the beginnings of many stories. I would get an idea, and then write the beginning, and then never touch it again.
-- A. E. van Vogt -
Science fiction is a field of writing where, month after month, every printed word implies to hundreds of thousands of people: 'There is change. Look, today's fantastic story is tomorrow's fact.
-- A. E. van Vogt -
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I’m not a fan of ‘write what you know.’ If you don’t know, find out. I knew nothing about the Bible before I started writing ‘The Year of Living Biblically.’ That was kind of the point – to learn.
-- A. J. Jacobs -
The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite.
-- A. J. LieblingSource : A. J. Liebling (2005). “Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer”, p.27, Macmillan
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I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.
-- A. J. Liebling -
I can write better than anyone who can write faster,
-- A. J. Liebling -
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If the first requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite, the second is to put in your apprenticeship as a feeder when you have enough money to pay the check but not enough to produce indifference of the total.
-- A. J. Liebling -
The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down.
-- A. J. Liebling -
The only way to write is well and how you do it is your own damn business.
-- A. J. Liebling -
When I write I have no loyalty except to historical truth as I see it and care no more about British achievements and mistakes than any other.
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
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Those who write are writers. Those who wait are waiters.
-- A. Lee Martinez -
If you don't have a sensation of apprehension when you set out to find a story and a swagger when you sit down to write it, you are in the wrong business.
-- A. M. Rosenthal -
My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.
-- A. N. Wilson -
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I don't think you can tell the objective truth about a person. That's why people write novels.
-- A. N. WilsonSource : "I'm Mr Evil". Interview with Matt Seaton, www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2003.
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If you know somebody is going to be awfully annoyed by something you write, that's obviously very satisfying, and if they howl with rage or cry, that's honey.
-- A. N. Wilson -
Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow, whether one feels oneself to be Tolstoyan or not.
-- A. N. Wilson -
If you imagine writing 1,000 words a day, which most journalists do, that would be a very long book a year.
-- A. N. Wilson -
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For I must write to The Times tonight, and save the world from sin.
-- A. P. HerbertSource : "Laughing Ann". Book by A. P. Herbert, 1925.
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Only write to me, write to me, I love to see the hop and skip and sudden starts of your ink.
-- A. S. Byatt