Quotes and Sayings About Writing

You write a lot of books; you hope you get better.
-- Alan Furst

#Book #Writing #Get Better

I write what I call 'novels of consolation' for people who are bright and sophisticated.
-- Alan Furst

#Writing #People #Sophisticated

I don't really write plots. I use history as the engine that drives everything.
-- Alan Furst

#Writing #Plot #Use

If you are going to write, nothing will stop you, and if you are not going to write, nothing will make you.
-- Alan Garner

#Writing

I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.
-- Alan Garner

#Writing #Stories #Research

When you start, the world of publishing seems like a great cathedral citadel of talent, resisting attempts to let you inside. It isn't like that at all. It may be more difficult now, and take longer than when I started to write, but there's a great, empty warehouse out there looking for simple talent.
-- Alan Garner

#Writing #Simple #World

I think being an only child created in me a degree of self-reliance, which I'm glad of. It made me perfectly happy with my own company and perhaps was good conditioning for the protracted solitude of writing books as slowly as I do.
-- Alan Hollinghurst

#Children #Book #Writing

I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't; they want that positive, uptempo thing.
-- Alan Jackson

#Song #Writing #People

You just write about things that happen.
-- Alan Jackson

#Writing

A lot of times when songwriters get together and write a song... somebody will come in with a hook and a lot of times they come out with something that sounds a little crafty.
-- Alan Jackson

#Song #Writing #Together

I don't write all my stuff. Everybody always thinks that. But in just about every album I've ever had has been about 50-50 songs I've written or co-written and other people's songs.
-- Alan Jackson

#Song #Writing #Thinking

You write a hit the same way you write a flop.
-- Alan Jay Lerner

#Writing #Way #Songwriting

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
-- Alan Jay Lerner

#Children #Writing #Speak

There even are places where English completely disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years! Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
-- Alan Jay Lerner

#Children #Writing #Years

Grandchildren now don't write a thank you for the Christmas presents. They are walking on their pants with their cap on backward, listening to the Enema Man and Snoopy, Snoopy Poop Dog.
-- Alan K. Simpson

#Thank You #Dog #Writing

Having an intelligent secretary does not get rid of the need to read, write, and draw, etc. In a well functioning world, tools and agents are complementary.
-- Alan Kay

#Writing #Intelligent #Doe

Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable. As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing a part of our lives?
-- Alan Kay

#Art #Reading #Writing

I think for many songwriter/performers, you need to go off by yourself and write the songs to begin with, but then you need people to bring them to life. So you have to be comfortable with solitude and also with being very social.
-- Alan Licht

#Song #Writing #Thinking

For some musicians it becomes self-reflexive to think, "I have to write some of my kind of songs now."
-- Alan Licht

#Song #Writing #Thinking

I have for a long time loved fabulist, imaginative fiction, such as the writing of Italo Calvino, Jose Saramago, Michael Bulgakov, and Salman Rushdie. I also like the magic realist writers, such as Borges and Marquez, and feel that interesting truths can be learned about our world by exploring highly distorted worlds.
-- Alan Lightman

#Writing #Our World #Interesting

My writings are an exploration, and I think a lot of writers would tell you this, but in writing, you're not simply putting down things that are already known to you. You're actually discovering in the writing process, you're actually creating knowledge.
-- Alan Lightman

#Writing #Thinking #Creating

You've got to be able to pay your bills, otherwise you're not going to sleep at night. But beyond that, the world inside my head has always been a far richer place than the world outside it. I suppose that a lot of my art and writing are meant to bring the two together.
-- Alan Moore

#Art #Writing #Sleep

There is some confusion as to what magic actually is. I think this can be cleared up if you just look at the very earliest descriptions of magic. Magic in its earliest form is often referred to as “the art”. I believe this is completely literal. I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic.
-- Alan Moore

#Art #Believe #Writing

To me, all creativity is magic. Ideas start out in the empty void of your head - and they end up as a material thing, like a book you can hold in your hand. That is the magical process. It's an alchemical thing. Yes, we do get the gold out of it but that's not the most important thing. It's the work itself.
-- Alan Moore

#Art #Book #Writing

The one thing with writing stories about the rise of fascism is that if you wait long enough, you'll almost certainly be proved right. Fascism is like a hydra - you can cut off its head in the Germany of the '30s and '40s, but it'll still turn up on your back doorstep in a slightly altered guise.
-- Alan Moore

#Writing #Cutting #Long

Way back in the day, when I first started and had delusions of adequacy as a cartoonist, I would listen to music. When I switched to a career as a writer, I would try to listen to music, but if the songs had lyrics they would get in the way of the words I was trying to write. So I switched to listening to purely instrumental pieces.
-- Alan Moore

#Song #Writing #Careers

There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
-- Alan Perlis

#Writing #Errors #Two

You think you KNOW when you learn, are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.
-- Alan Perlis

#Writing #Learning #Thinking

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.
-- Alan Rickman

#Writing #Character #Journey

I have every sympathy for writers. It's a mystery to me what they do. I can edit. I can cross out and say, 'I'm not saying that' or, 'How about we move this to here? Wouldn't that make that bit of the story better?' But where any of it comes from is beyond me. I will never write a play or a novel.
-- Alan Rickman

#Moving #Writing #Play