Best 30386 quotes in «writing quotes» category

Who learns most from a good book is the author.

Who often reads, will sometimes wish to write.

Whom do I write for? I write for the story. Each story, it seems to me, knows best how it should be told. As I once put my ear to the railroad track, I listen now for the voice of my story.

Whores and writers, Mahound. We are the people you can't forgive.

Whosoever in writing a modern history shall follow the truth too near the heels it may haply strike out his teeth.

Who taught you to write in blood on my back? Who taught you to use your hands as branding irons? You have scored your name into my shoulders, referenced me with your mark. The pads of your fingers have become printing blocks, you tap a message on to my skin, tap meaning into my body. Your morse code interferes with my heart beat. I had a steady heart before I met you, I relied upon it, it had seen active service and grown strong. Now you alter its pace with your own rhythm, you play upon me, drumming me taut.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

Who were my mentors in poetry and literature? This is a matter of opinion. Some see in my books the influences of authors whose names, in my ignorance, I have not even heard, while others see the influences of poets whose names I have heard but whose writings I have not read. And what is my opinion? From whom did I receive nurture? Not every man remembers the name of the cow which supplied him with each drop of milk he has drunk.

Who will dare to write a history of human goodness?

Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Why am I obsessed with the idea I can justify myself by getting manuscripts published? Is it an escape-an excuse for any social failure-so I can say "No, I don't go out for many extracurricular activities, but I spend a lot of time writing.

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?

Why did I write? whose sin to me unknown Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

Why can I write 'South' with some assurance that you'll know I mean Richmond and don't mean Phoenix? What is it that the South's boundaries enclose?

Why cast yourself over a cliff, deciding in your writings about things of which you are ignorant? Why do you not keep to what you have received from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church? You introduce novelties!

Why be in music, why write songs, if you can't use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life?

Why did I write? What sin to me unknown dipped me in ink, my parents , or my own?

Why does one write these books after all? The drudgery, the misery, the grind, are forgotten everytime; and one launches another, and it seems sheer joy and buoyancy.

Why does the Destroyer hate Artemis? (Cassandra) Love. Why else? Love, hatred, and revenge are the most powerful emotions on earth. Apollymi wants revenge on Artemis for killing the one thing she loved most in the universe. (Katra) And that is? (Cassandra) I would never betray either one by saying it. (Katra) Would you write it down?...Oh, yeah, like the two of you weren’t thinking the same thing. (Chris)

Why can't you write a great pop song when you are 85? Maybe you can.

Why can't Pluto be a planet? Some people like Pluto. And if it doesn't exist then they don't have a favorite planet. Right? Please write back but not in cursive because I can't read cursive.

Why do I write books? Why do I think? Why should I be passionate? Because things could be different, they could be made better.

Why do I write? I write because I have to, because it is all I know, because it is my truth, because I am compelled, because I am driven to make the world acknowledge that women like me exist, and we possess a dangerous wisdom.

Why do people think that it's appropriate to talk to me about my body? Why do men think it's appropriate to literally write comments that not only I will see but that the world will see about my breast size, the clothes I should be taking off, the kinds of things they want to see more of on Instagram, which all refer to my body. And that's not even getting into the threats of violence. And they come every day. They come every day. And it's wild to me that people think this stuff is appropriate.

Why do people write books that say it's better to be older than to be younger? It's not better. Even if you have all your marbles, you're constantly reaching for the name of the person you met the day before yesterday.

Why do I write today? The beauty of the terrible faces of our nonentities stirs me to it: colored women day workers- old and experienced- returning home at dusk, in cast off clothing faces like old Florentine oak.

Why do you always write poetry? Why do you not write prose? Prose is so much more difficult.

Why do I love writing? I can be who I want, do what I want, hurt who I want, and make the world over, just the way I'd love to have it.

Why do I write historical fiction? Johnny Tremain, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Island of the Blue Dolphins-that's why. I'll never forget how it felt to read those books. I want to write books with the same power to transport readers into another time and place.

Why do I write? I write to entertain my friends and to exasperate our enemies. To unfold the folded lie, to record to truth of our time, and, of course, to promote esthetic bliss.

Why do I write about China? That is a very good question. I think there are questions about China that I haven't been able to answer. The reason I write is that there are questions to which I want to find answers - or I want to find questions beyond those questions.

Why do I write? It's not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness.

Why do you think I write these feminist songs, to try and teach myself to respect myself. You know, it's not because I'm a hero.

Why do I write? I guess that's been asked of every writer. I don't know. It isn't any massive compulsion.

Why do I write? The truth, the unvarnished truth, is that I haven't a clue.

Why do so many ingenious theorists give fresh reasons every year for the decline of letter writing, and why do they assume, in derision of suffering humanity, that it has declined? They lament the lack of leisure, the lack of sentiment ... They talk of telegrams, and telephones, and postal cards, as if any discovery of science, any device of civilization, could eradicate from the human heart that passion for self-expression which is the impelling force of letters.

Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the postmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?

Why do you have to be out of town to write a postcard? I want a to write a postcard to my neighbor: "I still live near you!" The guy sees me go into my apartment, flips the card over, it's just a picture of me holding a rifle.

Why do you write?' Because I love words and stories so much. Because I would be grief stricken every day of my life if I couldn't write. Because I'm obsessed and compelled. Because I'd be utterly useless at anything else.

Why haven't we fixed sick yet? You scientists there-- put down those starfish and HELP us. I hereby demand that all the people who are good at math make the world free of illness. The rest of us will write you epic poems and staple them together into a booklet.

Why I find Louis Brandeis so exciting and inspiring because he's teaching us - good legal writing is not a matter of taste, it's a matter of connection with fellow citizens and of democratic education.

Why is a raven like a writing desk? - Mad Hatter I haven't the slightest idea. - Alice

Why honey, don't you want to get dressed?" My mother took care never to tell me to do anything. She would only reason with me sweetly, like one intelligent, mature person with another. It's almost three in the afternoon." I'm writing a novel," I said. "I haven't got time to change into this and change into that.

Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?

Why should I be polished and improved like goods for sale? I might not even want to marry! And besides, I have many skills. I can read and write and play the flute and harp. Why should I change to please some man? If he doesn’t like me the way I am, then he can get some other girl for his wife.

Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its capacious and accommodating nature. To expect a writer to produce only novels, or only histories, is equivalent to demanding from a composer that he or she write only string quartets or piano sonatas.

Why not write a book which is as sophisticated as a book for an adult, but is about the concerns that teenagers actually have?

Why not allow patrons to comment on directors' decisions, vote on costume design, listen to dancers' conversations, volunteer to help out in ways beyond just writing a check? They can see themselves as co-producers, not just bystanders.

Why it should be such an effort to write to the people one loves I can't imagine. It's none at all to write to those who don't really count.

Why the hell can't people just write nice happy stories about people having happy sex? That's what I want, and I bet a whole bunch of other people want it too.