Top Writing Quotes

The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does...

James's critical genius comes out most tellingly in his mastery over, his baffling escape from, Ideas; a mastery and an escape which are perhaps the last test of a superior intelligence. [...] In Eng...

Writing Definition

(p. pr. & vb. n.) of Write

(n.) The act or art of forming letters and characters on paper, wood, stone, or other material, for the purpose of recording the ideas which characters and words express, or of communicating them to others by visible signs.

(n.) Anything written or printed; anything expressed in characters or letters

(n.) Any legal instrument, as a deed, a receipt, a bond, an agreement, or the like.

(n.) Any written composition; a pamphlet; a work; a literary production; a book; as, the writings of Addison.

(n.) An inscription.

(n.) Handwriting; chirography.

For most digital-age writers, writing rewriting. We grope, cut, block, paste, and twitch, panning for gold onscreen by deleting bucketloads of crap. Our analog ancestors had to polish every line ment...

Cynics are simply thwarted romantics.

Blackadder was fifty-four and had come to editing Ash out of pique. He was the son and grandson of Scottish schoolmasters. His grandfather recited poetry on firelight evenings: Marmion, Childe Harold,...

I was writing poetry, and the Mountain Goats was an outgrowth of that.

My first true lesson in writing came from Mr. Bowden when I was 16. At my high school, he was the teacher known to be the very best at literature and writing.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no

I try to write a certain amount each day, five days a week. A rule sometimes broken is better than no rule.

Writing a first draft is like groping one's way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you've forgotten. As someone said, one writes mainly to rewrite...

Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can follow.

History is full of blank spaces, but good stories, invariably, are not.

To fight discouragement, remind yourself of the basics: I can write.I have the opportunity to do so. I love what I write. Now smile and be thankful.

The key is in the craft.

Go write win!

How you feel after watching something indicates not what you watched but where you are at.

The muse is the mystic force, but you are the master.

[When asked for her advice to aspiring writers] Run! Just kidding. Sort of. Really, I think the best advice I can give is to wait for the book that compels you to write it-- the one that you eat, slee...

I will never accept life for what it is. I don't need an easy life. My road was meant to be hard because anything worth having in this world will take me to the very edge of myself. I will overcome ev...

Positive thoughts shape a positive world.