More Fitting Quotes By Writers on Writing
May 11th 2007 03:24
Here are a few more quotes by writers on writing. Some are thought-provoking, some brutally honest, some inspiring, and some simply clever--but whatever your thinking about the art or the craft, you should find something here that will catch your fancy!
Here goes:
There is only one trait that marks the writer. He is always watching. It's a kind of trick of mind and he is born with it. ~Morley Callaghan~
Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book. ~Mickey Spillane~
Autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing. ~Quentin Crisp~
A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else can only be a footnote. ~Yevgeny Yevtushenko~
Books are...funny little portable pieces of thought. ~Susan Sontag~
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more books than he has read. ~Samuel Johnson~
Journalism is literature in a hurry. ~Matthew Arnold~
Literature is the question minus the answer. ~Roland Barthes~
Literature is recognizable through its capacity to evoke more than it says. ~Anthony Burgess~
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. ~G.K. Chesterton~
To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession. ~Robert Graves~
The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born. ~W.H. Auden~
A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. ~Robert Frost~
It's easier to write a mediocre poem than to understand a good one. ~Montaigne~
In a poem the words should be as pleasing to the ear as the meaning is to the mind. ~Marianne Moore~
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings...in a man who has thought long and deeply. ~William Wordsworth~
You write by sitting down and writing. There's no particular time or place--you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he's disciplined, doesn't matter. ~Bernard Malamud~
I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark. ~Henry David Thoreau~
When I stop (working), the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm working. ~Tennessee Williams~
Words are loaded pistols. ~Jean-Paul Sartre~
Words are like leaves, and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. ~Alexander Pope~
All the fun's in how you say a thing. ~Robert Frost~
The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne~
I do not understand this chronic illness. I wish I had gone to law school. ~Darryl Pinckney~
The best time for planning a book is when you're doing the dishes. ~Agatha Christie~
I talk out the lines as I write. ~Tennessee Williams~
If I could, I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results. ~Emily Bronte~
If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers. ~Irvin S. Cobb~
Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. ~E. L. Doctorow~
Hope a few of these provocative thoughts have set your own creative juices flowing!
Happy writing!
Jeanne
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