Writing
In the Phaedrus, Plato argued that the new arrival of writing would revolutionize culture for the worst. He suggested that it would substitute reminiscence for thought and mechanical learning for the true dialect of the living quest for truth by discourse and conversation.
Marshall McLuhanI am a galley slave to pen and ink.
Honore de BalzacBe generous, be delicate, and always pursue the prize.
Henry JamesHow vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Henry David ThoreauI always wrote with the idea that what I put out there is going to stay there. Once I publish something, it has been published. I've never deleted more than one or two posts from my site. I don't think that there are takebacks. I don't feel right about it.
Alison HeadleyAny word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Stephen KingAdvice to writers: Sometimes you just have to stop writing. Even before you begin.
Stanislaw J. LecThe cure for writer's cramp is writer's block.
Inigo DeLeonSee things as they are and write about them. Don’t waste your creative energy trying to make things up. Even if you are writing fiction, write the things you see and know.
Real Live PreacherA scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
George OrwellWriters should be read, but neither seen nor heard.
Daphne du MaurierThe man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.
George Bernard ShawA great writer reveals the truth even when he or she does not wish to.
Tom BissellIt took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
Robert BenchleyEven in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
C. S. LewisI don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead.
Samuel GoldwynWe do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
W. Somerset MaughamIf a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.
Victor HugoGood writing takes more than just time; it wants your best moments and the best of you.
Real Live PreacherIf any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheI was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
Oscar WildeWriting is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Robert HeinleinWriting well mean never having to say, 'I guess you had to be there.'
Jef MallettThe tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and the blood.
John BurroughsThere is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.
Saul Bellow
