Writing Quotes - Page 22

Lunatics are writers whose works write them, Bat." "Not all lunatics are writers, Mrs. Rey-believe me." "But most writers are lunatics, Bat-believe me. The human world is made up of stories, not people.

Behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul.

There is no reticence nor any limit to a 'Majique.' Only the unwillingness of the mind to open itself to the limitless power of possibilities that exist within the unbelievable.

After the first glass of vodkayou can accept just about anythingof life even your own mysteriousnessyou think it is nice that a boxof matches is purple and brown and is called La Petite and comes from Swedenfor they are words that you know and that is all you know words not their feelings or what they mean and you write because you know them not because you understand them because you don't you are stupid and lazy and will never be great but you do what you know because what else is there?

Listen to what speaks to your heart.

If my life was pulled into the pages of a book, there would be coffee stains and wrinkles along the lines of that narrative. Because all I can wish is that the book of my life would be well read and well loved. Living within words and the sound of writing.

As writers we intend to make a difference, to alter people's lives for the greater good. . .this is why we write, to have an impact on society, to put a personal stamp on history. . .Art and literature are the legacies we leave to succeeding generations. We'll be forgotten, but our books and essays, our stories and poems can survive us. . .

No one ever developed their character by arranging their experiences in such a way that only ‘good’ things are allowed to happen to them. Character is not purchased with a dance in the street. It is not cheap, and it’s hard to come by, owing partly to the fact that it is the heir of disappointment, frustration, betrayal and deceit. However, it is not the inheritance that matters so much as what you do with it. In the face of seemingly insurmountable problems what do you do, and why do you do it? The same holds for dramatic characters whose strength, courage, insight and wisdom have to be earned.

You must begin writing your life book.

A writer creates from his mind; his creations emanate from the feelings enmeshed deep within his heart. From the fire burning within his soul, he gives shape to his thoughts. His thoughts start to breathe. Every sentence breathes with a purpose.

The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolt.

Always write as if you will never have the blessed chance to write again, so this has to be the best thing you've ever done. Do that, and it will be.

For the writer under Actually Existing Socialism describing sex is a simple matter: he simply does not do it (the describing, I mean, not the sex).

God wants to use you right where you are with what you have not what you do not have.

When I write...I am in the fond armsof a childhood friendupon whose colorful heart I can hang the charcoal drawingsof my woes.

We are all planted in God's vineyard and our lives are filled with potentials and purpose and we have all been given the hopes to anchor our lives even in the most disappointed times. So God is waiting to see what you and I will make out of the raw materials that He has given to us. He is waiting to see what we will make out of the discouragement and disappointment. I believe that in those deepest places of disappointment that the greatest grace will manifest.

Writing blooms flowers for mind, which last forever.

Imagination is glow of thoughts by supernatural force.

People ask me all the time, "Where do your ideas come from?" So, to clear up this question...I keep my ideas inside the mind of a tiny man who is tied up in my closet!

I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.

I suppose some editors are failed writers - but so are most writers.

We cannot control the way people interpret our ideas or thoughts, but we can control the words and tones we choose to convey them. Peace is built on understanding, and wars are built on misunderstandings. Never underestimate the power of a single word, and never recklessly throw around words. One wrong word, or misinterpreted word, can change the meaning of an entire sentence and start a war. And one right word, or one kind word, can grant you the heavens and open doors.

I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.

I am writing something very simple that will change you and change the world.

A short story is a sprint, a novel is a marathon. Sprinters have seconds to get from here to there and then they are finished. Marathoners have to carefully pace themselves so that they don't run out of energy (or in the case of the novelist-- ideas) because they have so far to run. To mix the metaphor, writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage.

Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.

Don't quit. It's very easy to quit during the first 10 years. Nobody cares whether you write or not, and it's very hard to write when nobody cares one way or the other. You can't get fired if you don't write, and most of the time you don't get rewarded if you do. But don't quit.

None of this excuses anyone from mastering the basic ideas and terminology of economics. The intelligent layman must expect also to encounter good economists who are difficult writers even though some of the best have been very good writers. He should know, moreover, that at least for a few great men ambiguity of expression has been a positive asset. But with these exceptions he may safely conclude that what is wholly mysterious in economics is not likely to be important.

I said, "Is there!" I told him there is a Mafia school where they teach them math — if Johnny has ten fingers and they cut off two, how many does he have left?

If you were waiting for a sign that you’re meant to be a writer…THIS IS IT.

What's real and what's not? People we meet in books--Holden Caulfield, Captain Ahab, Huckleberry Finn, Harry Potter, Bilbo and Gandalf and Frodo-- can become more memorable, and more important to us than people with birth certificates and drivers' licenses. Characters spawned in an author's imagination find a home inside us. They make our lives richer. They become our best friends. They never disappoint. And they never die.

A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give.

Writing is a form of art. Do not use New Times Roman or Arial because it's boring and hackneyed.

From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in Future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out.We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Humility is an essential quality in writers who want to write well.

Why is joy not considered a fit subject for an artist?

A POCKET-SIZED GIRLHe keeps me in his pocket for a rainy day; he swears I'm not an object as he yo-yo's me away.A friend is what we'll call it,but my friend, he does not know,each time it rains I love him— so to his pocket, I must go.He thinks he's being clever,but I am not a fool;his love ain't worth a penny,so to my heart I must be cruel.

My writing, it’s my way of making sense of everything. My way to feel whole. May I never be complete and may I never feel content – please, let me always have the need, always have the urge to write. 

Sometimes a writer simply finds new ways of saying what has already been said because, ultimately, truth is unoriginal.

How about we be the light of Jesus Christ? There are things we tend to forget when fear becomes the driving force. The world is filled with a lot of questions now; what do we do? Who do we elect? How do we fix this? Some people feel powetless in those ways. Helpless, hopeless, confused, overwhelmed.What do we do?My answer: Stop looking for practical advice "don't be afraid " "those who are with us are more than those who are with them"2 kings 6:16

Be a burst of joy.

I don't know what I was hoping for. Some small praise, I guess. A bit of encouragement. I didn't get it. Miss Parrish took me aside one day after school let out. She said she'd read my stories and found them morbid and dispiriting. She said literature was meant to uplift the heart and that a young woman such as myself ought to turn her mind to topics more cheerful and inspiring than lonely hermits and dead children."Look around yourself, Mathilda," she said. "At the magnificence of nature. It should inspire joy and awe. Reverence. Respect. Beautiful thoughts and fine words."I had looked around. I'd seen all the things she'd spoken of and more besides. I'd seen a bear cub lift it's face to the drenching spring rains. And the sliver moon of winter, so high and blinding. I'd seen the crimson glory of a stand of sugar maples in autumn and the unspeakable stillness of a mountain lake at dawn. I'd seen them and loved them. But I'd also seen the dark of things. The starved carcasses of winter deer. The driving fury of a blizzard wind. And the gloom that broods under the pines always. Even on the brightest days.

Critics! Appalled I ventured on the name.Those cutthroat bandits in the paths of fame.

Always mystify, torture, mislead, and surprise the audience as much as possible.

The great thing about writing fiction is that you can do whatever the fuck you want, go as far as you are willing to go, and laugh at the people who take it seriously.

Writing... is 90 percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you write, it pours out of you...You don't only listen to the person speaking to you across the table, but simultaneously listen to the air, the chair, and the door. And go beyond the door. Take in the sound of the season, the sound of the color coming in through the windows. Listen to the past, future, and present right where you are. Listen with your whole body, not only with your ears, but with your hands, your face, and the back of your neck.

Those of little understanding say the world will soon end. It is the current age that is coming to an end. The end of this age is the beginning of the next.

The thing I write will be the thing I write.

The inkstand is full of ink, and the paper lies white and unspotted, in the round of light thrown by a candle. Puffs of darkness sweep into the corners, and keep rolling through the room behind his chair. The air is silver and pearl, for the night is liquid with moonlight.See how the roof glitters, like ice!Over there, a slice of yellow cuts into the silver-blue, and beside it stand two geraniums, purple because the light is silver-blue, to-night.

Tell the story that's been growing in your heart, the characters you can't keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes you up in the morning.

Never believe anything a writer tells you about himself. A man comes to believe in the end the lies he tells himself about himself.

What I am going to propose is that you write a novel.As you know, the practical advantages of being able to write out your thoughts fluently are very great. For one thing, when you are used to writing them out, they present themselves, one after another. When you are not used to writing them out, they mill around among themselves usually and you see nothing but heads and tails of them when you sit down to get them on paper. I know from my own experience that the first two or three hours of every exam I ever took were spent simply getting my pen warmed up, and by then it was too late.

I am not learning definitions as established in even the latest dictionaries. I am not a dictionary-maker. I am a person a dictionary-maker has to contend with. I am a living evidence in the development of language.

The Nobel Prize is the best thing that can happen to a writer in terms of how it affects your contracts, the publishers, and the seriousness with which your work is taken. On the other hand, it does interfere with your private life, or it can if you let it, and it has zero effect on the writing.It doesn't help you write better and if you let it, it will intimidate you about future projects.

Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.

The world doesn't fully make sense until the writer has secured his version of it on the page. And the act of writing is strangely more lifelike than life.

He possessed the logic of all good intentions and a knowledge of all the tricks of his trade, and yet he never succeeded at anything, because he believed too much in the impossible. Surprising? Why so? He was forever in the act of conceiving it!

Stand up upon the right side, and I shall expound the similitude unto thee.

The skill of writing needs much patience, practicing, and time. There is no good writing from a quick effort, or a confused writer.

Objectives are only words written on paper without passion and desire