Top Writing Quotes Collection - Page 55

Discover a curated collection of Writing quotes. Find inspiration, motivation, and wisdom from the best quotes in this category. Page 55 provides more Writing quotes.

Image of John Jeremiah Sullivan
I think empathy is a guy who punches you in the face at a bus station, and you're somehow able to look at that him and know enough about what situation he was in to know that he had to do that and not to hit back. That's empathy, and nothing ever happens in writing that has that kind of moral heroism about it.
- John Jeremiah Sullivan
Collection: Writing
Image of John Jeremiah Sullivan
One of the best things I’ve read about that inexplicably, but endlessly, fascinating group of people, the so-called Serious Collectors of 78s. Petrusich burrows into not just their personalities but the hunger that unites and drives their obsessions. She writes elegantly, and makes you think, and most important manages to hang onto her skepticism in the midst of her own collecting quest.
- John Jeremiah Sullivan
Collection: Writing
Image of Stanley Fish
The first thing to ask when writing a sentence is 'What am I trying to do?'
- Stanley Fish
Collection: Writing
Image of Stanley Fish
What we know of the world comes to us through words, or, to look at it from the other direction, when we write a sentence, we create a world, which is not the world, but the world as is appears within a dimension of assessment.
- Stanley Fish
Collection: Writing
Image of Stanley Fish
It may sound paradoxical, but verbal fluency is the product of many hours spent writing about nothing, just as musical fluency is the product of hours spent repeating scales.
- Stanley Fish
Collection: Writing
Image of Stanley Fish
People write or speak sentences in order to produce an effect, and the success of a sentence is measured by the degree to which the desired effect has been achieved.
- Stanley Fish
Collection: Writing
Image of Stanley Fish
Know what makes a sentence more than a random list, practice constructing sentences and explaining what you have done, and you will know how to make sentences forever and you will know too when what you are writing doesn't make the grade because it has degenerated into a mere pile of discrete items.
- Stanley Fish
Collection: Writing
Image of Stanley Fish
Just as you can practice three-word sentences or sentences that travel across time zones, so can you practice writing sentences that breathe unshakable conviction.
- Stanley Fish
Collection: Writing
Image of Ben Lerner
I don't want to write poems that are just really clear about how I'm aware of all the traps involved in writing poetry; I don't want to write fiction that's about the irresponsibility of writing fiction and I've thrown out a lot of writing that I think was ultimately tainted by that kind of self-awareness.
- Ben Lerner
Collection: Writing
Image of Ben Lerner
I wasn't aware I'd write the novel when I wrote the New Yorker story either. And the narration of their construction in 10:04 is fiction, however flickering.
- Ben Lerner
Collection: Writing
Image of Timothy Findley
I write against violence. I write against fascism. I write against one person dominating another.
- Timothy Findley
Collection: Writing
Image of Timothy Findley
And what you do is you go into where your anger is, if you're writing anger, you go into where your hatred is, if you're writing hatred. Your joy is, if you're writing joy. You find the source of the energy that draws hatred, anger, joy, etc., etc., etc. That's what you have to find. That's what you do as an actor and that's what you do as a writer. And you bring people to the page.
- Timothy Findley
Collection: Writing
Image of Stephen Dunn
The world is always somewhat vicious. I take that as a given, but at various times in various circumstances that fact will be no more than a shadow or an echo behind some poem. Other times it will be more manifest. I try to write myself into articulations of half-felt, half-known feelings, without program. I'm always working toward getting my world and, hopefully, the world outside of me into a version that makes sense of it. Viciousness requires the same precision as love does.
- Stephen Dunn
Collection: Writing
Image of James Atlas
Writing is the worst part of being a writer.
- James Atlas
Collection: Writing
Image of Joseph Epstein
For me writing is foremost a mode of thinking and when it works well, an act of discovery
- Joseph Epstein
Collection: Writing
Image of Margaret Maron
I came to writing mysteries through poetry and still think that a well-constructed mystery is very much like a well-constructed sonnet. Both are artificial forms. Both start off in one direction and then, with a twist of the concluding couplet/surprising ending, both reveal that they were headed somewhere different all the time.
- Margaret Maron
Collection: Writing
Image of Bram Cohen
Things which any idiot could write usually have the quality of having been written by an idiot.
- Bram Cohen
Collection: Writing
Image of Henry Denker
Writing is a business and should be practiced as such. On days when you think you can’t possibly write a line you do it anyhow.
- Henry Denker
Collection: Writing
Image of Dario Fo
For some time its been my habit to use images when preparing a speech: rather than write it down, I illustrate it.
- Dario Fo
Collection: Writing
Image of Skeme
I'm out here to bomb, period. That's what I started for. I didn't start writing to go to Paris, I didn't start writing to do canvases. I started writing to bomb... destroy all lines.
- Skeme
Collection: Writing
Image of Edwin Boring
Doing an experiment is not more important than writing.
- Edwin Boring
Collection: Writing
Image of Herbert Gold
I always ask young writers, 'Are you certain you want to be a writer? If you're absolutely sure, then do it.' If you really want to write, writing has to take precedence over everything else, except for taking care of your loved ones. It has to be more important than any possession, more important than fame. We hear about just a few writers who get famous, but most of them don't. It's got to mean more than that.
- Herbert Gold
Collection: Writing
Image of Nick Tosches
I've gone more than 40 years without having to use an alarm clock or go to an office. At this point, I don't think I'd be capable of not writing. I don't think I could deprive myself of that sky. It would be like putting an animal in a cage.
- Nick Tosches
Collection: Writing
Image of Nick Tosches
The main event is freedom. I often wonder if I had the complete freedom to not have to write, if I would write. That's the one mystery that I hope I get to experience. It might be a good idea to retire, since as this delusion of an economy progresses, it seems that if you make ten grand a year or a hundred grand a year, there's absolutely no difference.
- Nick Tosches
Collection: Writing
Image of Nick Tosches
You're never gonna outwrite the movement of the white clouds and the blue sky. You're never going to. There are times when I try to write beautifully, but I don't know if I'm trying to exorcise my own demons. If I am, there are other ones lurking beneath, because they keep coming out. Maybe little by little I'm fumigating.
- Nick Tosches
Collection: Writing
Image of John Hiatt
It's a whole package, singer/songwriter. I like writing but I like performing just as much.
- John Hiatt
Collection: Writing
Image of Jim Lampley
There are two kinds of people in boxing. Those who say, 'Oh, boy; Tom Hauser is writing an article about me,' and those who say, 'Big problem; Tom Hauser is writing an article about me.'
- Jim Lampley
Collection: Writing
Image of Meghan Daum
I don't keep a diary or a journal. Sometimes I'll send emails to friends and that's a way of recording what I was thinking at any given time. But I've never been a journal keeper. I feel like part of that is because I'm always on deadline. I've been a freelancer my entire career and, at any given time, I have several deadlines for all sorts of things whether it's some magazine piece or ad copywriting or anything. Obviously, people with deadlines keep journals all the time but, for me, the idea of doing more writing is never appealing. It's why I never blog.
- Meghan Daum
Collection: Writing
Image of Meghan Daum
What I think is important about essayists, about the essay as opposed to a lot of personal writing is that the material has to be presented in a processed way. I'm just not interested in writing, "Hey, this is what happened to me today." You get to a place that has very little to do with your personal experience and talks about some larger idea or something in the culture. I don't think you can get to that unless you have had a lot of time to gestate and maybe if I was taking a lot of notes while stuff was going on, I wouldn't be able to get to that place as easily.
- Meghan Daum
Collection: Writing
Image of Matthea Harvey
Writing a poem is always a process of subtracting: you start with all of language available to you, and you choose a smaller field.
- Matthea Harvey
Collection: Writing
Image of Matthea Harvey
Usually form seems to find me in the process of writing a poem, though I have nothing against starting out with the form.
- Matthea Harvey
Collection: Writing
Image of Matthea Harvey
Poetic success is when you write a poem that makes you excited and bewildered and aglow.
- Matthea Harvey
Collection: Writing
Image of Matthea Harvey
In my own writing, I've mostly abandoned end-rhyme, but wordplay is still a huge part of my process.
- Matthea Harvey
Collection: Writing
Image of Bruce Bennett
I write box notes for Kino International, which specializes in distributing foreign films.
- Bruce Bennett
Collection: Writing
Image of Sam Tsui
My writing voice is a little quirkier, more singer-songwriter-y than the Top 40 stuff I cover.
- Sam Tsui
Collection: Writing
Image of Ron Padgett
It is not easy writing someone a postcard. The size and shape of the card cut you down to size.
- Ron Padgett
Collection: Writing
Image of Ron Padgett
Almost everything that's happened in my poetry is what you might call organic. I don't do much preconceiving. The only consistent plan I've ever had is to try to break my patterns, my habits, my kneejerk tendencies in writing. If I start to sound too much like the Ron Padgett that I've read before, I stop myself. I don't want to get locked perpetually in a mode or a level of diction or a stylistic vein - what is called a poetic voice.
- Ron Padgett
Collection: Writing
Image of Ron Padgett
So writing about love or having it infuse the poems that I'm writing has never been something I've set myself to do, except when I write a poem for my wife, for an occasion, such as our anniversary.
- Ron Padgett
Collection: Writing
Image of Ron Padgett
I don't do much of anything consciously in writing - in poetry writing, anyway, prose usually being a different matter, of course.
- Ron Padgett
Collection: Writing
Image of Jean Little
Your only responsibility as a writer is to be true to the story that has chosen you as its writer.
- Jean Little
Collection: Writing
Image of Pat Mora
I write because I am curious. I am curious about me.
- Pat Mora
Collection: Writing
Image of Pat Mora
When I'm writing poetry, 99.9% of my writing begins in English. I spent most of my life in English, although I am bilingual.
- Pat Mora
Collection: Writing
Image of Joan Armatrading
Writing is all about self-editing; it's all about being present being aware of what's happening
- Joan Armatrading
Collection: Writing
Image of Joan Armatrading
When I was younger I was obsessed with writing, so even if I wanted to listen, I didnt have time.
- Joan Armatrading
Collection: Writing
Image of C. K. Williams
The more I write, the more the silence seems to be eating away at me.
- C. K. Williams
Collection: Writing
Image of Isla Fisher
I still write. I'd love to write more trashy chick-lit. At the moment, I just re-write my own lines, which probably annoys most directors - though, thankfully not Adam Brooks!
- Isla Fisher
Collection: Writing
Image of Craig A. Evans
All archaeologists in Israel and Palestine make use of the New Testament Gospels. They do this because the Gospels exhibit verisimilitude. In short, the Gospels help archaeologists know where to dig and they help archaeologists understand what they unearth. The 2nd-century Gospels and Gospel-like writings rarely exhibit verisimilitude, so archaeologists rarely appeal to them.
- Craig A. Evans
Collection: Writing
Image of Craig A. Evans
The Greek word pseudepigrapha is a Greek word meaning 'falsely superscribed,' or what we moderns might call writing under a pen name. The classification, 'OT Pseudepigrapha,' is a label that scholars have given to these writings.
- Craig A. Evans
Collection: Writing
Image of John Landgraf
It's not that writing staffs don't change at all, but they don't change very much. Directors are freelancers. There are directors who do five or 10 episodes of a show every year for years, but most directors are freelance, they come and go.
- John Landgraf
Collection: Writing