Rewriting Quotes:

The best writing is rewriting.

- E. B. White

topic: Writing, Learning, Rewriting

Particularly in my early days, I did very little rewriting.

- Jimmy Webb

topic: Littles, Rewriting

More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.

- John Irving

topic: Two, Special, Rewriting

Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.

- John Updike

topic: Writing, Rewriting, Constant, Art Of Writing

Rewriting to me means, if I work on it for three days, I've rewritten it.

- Jules Shear

topic: Mean, Three, Rewriting

Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.

- Larry L. King

topic: Writing, Shortcuts, Rewriting

There is no great writing, only great rewriting.

- Louis D. Brandeis

topic: Writing, Rewriting, Great Writing

The past is a script we are constantly rewriting.

- Michael Moorcock

source: Michael Moorcock (2008). “Elric The Stealer of Souls”, p.21, Del Rey

topic: Past, Rewriting, Scripts

I didn't like people rewriting my dialogue. I didn't like the fact that we'd start a comic with the Joker, and by the time we inked it, he would have turned into the Scarecrow.

- Neil Gaiman

topic: People, Rewriting, Facts, Scarecrow

Rewriting is like scrubbing the basement floor with a toothbrush.

- Peter Murphy

topic: Rewriting, Crafts, Toothbrushes

Too many are focused on rewriting the past, invent the future!

- Philippe Kahn

topic: Past, Rewriting, Focused

There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.

- Robert Graves

topic: Writing, Rewriting, Good Writing

[Rewriting is] a whole other art form; it's about craftsmanship.

- Sam Shepard

topic: Art, Crafts, Rewriting, Craftsmanship

The main reason for rewriting is not to achieve a smooth surface, but to discover the inner truth of your characters.

- Saul Bellow

topic: Character, Rewriting, Reason

The biggest difference between a writer and a would-be writer is their attitude toward rewriting. . . . Unwillingness to revise usually signals an amateur.

- Sol Stein

topic: Attitude, Differences, Rewriting

I never really like it when other writers talk about coming in behind people and rewriting.

- Tony Gilroy

topic: People, Rewriting, Behinds

I marveled a bit at the feat Lubianka re-education. I also began to understand more clearly what was meant by rewriting history for the proletariat and how it could be arranged that young people would hear nothing whatsoever of God.

- Walter Ciszek

topic: Education, People, Rewriting, Rewriting History

If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first; but when once objectified I can torture and poke and scrape and pat it till it offends me no more.

- William James

topic: Style, Firsts, Rewriting, Poke

That rewriting of literary history is most obvious in the case of The Yage Letters, where I was able to show that the true history inverts the official one.

- Oliver Harris

topic: Letters, Able, Rewriting, Invert

Once you start rewriting, you're not able to stop. With each draft the fundamental banality and worthlessness of the material becomes more evident even as its vitality and spontaneity are drained from it.

- Barry N. Malzberg

topic: Able, Rewriting, Vitality, Drained, Worthlessness

Donald Trump has been rewriting the rules since he got into politics.

- Christopher Michael Cillizza

source: Source: live.washingtonpost.com

topic: Rewriting, Trump, Has Beens

The process of rewriting is enjoyable, because you're not in that existential panic when you don't have a novel at all.

- Rose Tremain

topic: Panic, Rewriting, Existentialism

I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.

- Leo Tolstoy

topic: Writing, Rewriting, I Can

I feel the most natural thing is for music to come that way because it's sort of like poetry. Though I do think with poets that I like, like Charles Olson or Ezra Pound, they were rewriting constantly, until the poem becomes a diamond.But with music I don't really feel that way.

- Stephen Malkmus

source: Source: therumpus.net

topic: Thinking, Way, Rewriting

There is no good writing; there is only good rewriting.

- Louis D. Brandeis

topic: Writing, Rewriting, Good Writing

The book really comes to life in the rewriting.

- Philip Roth

source: Source: www.thedailybeast.com

topic: Book, Rewriting

Hillary has already gotten a record $8 million advance from Simon & Schuster for the book -- reportedly the most anyone has ever received for rewriting history.

- Ann Coulter

topic: Book, Rewriting, Records, Rewriting History

We are redefining terms and rewriting laws and removing fences everywhere you turn, and we seem to think we can do that with impunity.

- Ravi Zacharias

source: Twitter post from Apr 25, 2015

topic: Thinking, Law, Rewriting

You let the story cool off and then, instead of rewriting it, you relive it.

- Ray Bradbury

topic: Stories, Rewriting

Good writing is rewriting.

- Truman Capote

topic: Writing, Rewriting, Good Writing

I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.

- Kate DiCamillo

topic: Writing, Rewriting, Screenplays

Should we be rewriting history just to make people feel good? That's not history, that's psychiatry.

- Ed Koch

source: Ed Koch (1994). “Ed Koch on Everything: Movies, Politics, Personalities, Food and Other Stuff”, Birch Lane Press

topic: People, Feel Good, Rewriting, Rewriting History

Writing for me is largely about rewriting.

- Khaled Hosseini

source: "Khaled Hosseini: How I Write". Interview with Noah Charney, www.thedailybeast.com. November 7, 2012.

topic: Writing, Rewriting

The only kind of writing is rewriting.

- Ernest Hemingway

topic: Writing, Rewriting, Kind

Writing is rewriting what you have rewritten.

- Paul Engle

topic: Writing, Rewriting