Best 30386 quotes in «writing quotes» category

You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

You can never properly predict the future as it really turns out. So you are doing something a little different when you write science fiction. You are trying to take a different perspective on now.

You can never be an artist if your work comes without effort. That is the problem with modernink from a bottle. You do not have to think. You simply write what is swimming on the top of your brain. And the top is nothing but pond scum, dead leaves, and mosquito spawn.

You can never be too paranoid.

You cannot help another who will not help him or herself. In the end, all souls must walk their path - and the reason they are walking a particular path may not be clear to us... or even to them at the level of ordinary human consciousness. Do what you can to help others, of course. Show love and caring whenever and wherever you can. But do not get caught up in someone else's "story" to the point where you start writing it.

You cannot live in Los Angeles for any period of time without eventually trying to write a screenplay. It's like a flu bug that you catch ... Even the plumber has a screenplay in his truck.

You cannot overestimate the role of intuition in fiction writing. Or the role of accident or randomness. These things are very central. This is never really admitted. You have to cover the pages. You have to have those people do things. And the things they do have to be relevant to the entire concern. The specific things they do don't much matter, you just have to have them do something that counts.

You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself." "Hang on, can I write this down?" said Arthur, excitedly fumbling in his pocket for a pencil.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

You cannot teach somebody to write a masterpiece, but you can certainly teach them how to improve their writing skills. And you can teach them that they can make their own voices more effective by being able to communicate more clearly and forcefully. It makes people feel more capable when they can write - for instance to make a request - of a politician - and when they are able to receive a reply.

You can only write, 'Somebody wants something, something else is in their way of getting it.'

You cannot write for children They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.

You can only write so many pop songs before they all sound the same. I got to a point where something overtly melodic and straightforward sounded sort of cheesy to me. Pop songs seemed too manufactured.

You cannot write to resonate twenty or thirty or forty years from now. You only can write for that very day, but whatever happens is all gravy.

You can only look forward to a South Dakota winter if, as with childbirth, remodeling a house, or writing a novel, you're able to forget how bad it was the last time.

You cannot write down how people are good; you just know it, and cannot get away from it.

You cannot write in more than one language. Words don't come out as well.

You can really help support a character if you understand the setting. So for that reason I generally write about Philadelphia.

You can stroke people with words.

You can punch a wall or write a song. Just as painful either way, but you have something to show for it at the end of the day with a song.

You can sit and write in your room all you want, but until other people see it, until you see it produced for television or film or something, you're not 100 percent sure if what you wrote is actually going to work.

You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: what does the reader need to know next?

You can recover from the writing malady only by falling mortally ill and dying.

You can say or write anything about me you like. Just don't, for any reason, ever tell the truth.

You can't be a good writer without being a good thinker.

You can't beat a good sonnet, and you can write a sonnet without being married to the damned thing.

You can't be a writer if you don't write, it's just that simple.

You can't be afraid to deal with your demons. You've got to go there to be able to write.

You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend.

You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend. You can't be a jerk in order to be a good writer. You can't say, "I'm too busy writing to be political." You are one person. You are the same person in every aspect of your life, and you have to be a responsible person in every aspect of your life.

You can't be a serious writer of fiction unless you believe the story you are telling.

You can't be wrong in journalism. Take a wrong turn in journalism, and you are writing fiction. You can take a wrong turn in poetry, and something wonderful can happen.

You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.

You can't be a writer and have nothing to write about. You have to have life experiences.

You can't be blocked if you just keep on writing words. Any words. People who get 'blocked' make the mistake of thinking they have to write good words.

You can't blame a writer for what the characters say.

You can't do something that is morally vacuous or dysfunctional and then write it off saying, 'It wasn't my film, I was just doing a job in it.'

You can't fake it. Bad writing is a gift.

You can teach almost anyone determined to learn them the basics required to write sentences and paragraphs that say what you want them to say clearly and concisely. It's far more difficult to get people to think like a writer, to give up conventional habits of mind and emotion. You must be able to step inside your character's skin, and at the same time to remain outside the dicey circumstances you have maneuvered her into.

You can teach someone who cares to write columns, but you can’t teach someone who writes columns to care.

You can't expect someone who has been in prison his whole entire life to turn around and become a sweet guy who writes books and walks his dog and has a normal life.

You can then further enhance the process of writing by forming the clear intention that your Higher Self will influence your writing.

You can't improv off of bad writing. Then you have to actually create your objective, which is really hard to do in an element without the skeleton to go off of.

You can't learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can't learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can't learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.

You can't have a dream come true if you don't have a dream. You can't write a book if you don't write.

You can't learn to write that way - by writing directly for the screen. Wait until you're 30. But in the meantime write 200 short stories. You've got to learn how to write!

You can't know what a book is about until the very end. This is true of a book we're reading or writing.

You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do—and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time. A lot of the people whose work they’ve taught in the schools for the last thirty years, I can’t understand why people read them and why they are taught.

You can't plan to write a great song. It just happens to you. It drops in your lap. It's the same thing with a woman.

You can't possibly predict what will last or not. But once you attempt to write for the ages, you're doomed.