Best 30386 quotes in «writing quotes» category

Domesticity is the enemy of art. I don't know if that's true. You can write good happy songs. So, I don't think it's necessarily happiness. But I think self-satisfaction is maybe the enemy. It's kind of better to think, "Tomorrow night I'm gonna sing it better." There is this forward effort. It feels to me right, it feels human.

Donald Trump attacked the woman reporter writing the story, called her "disgusting," as he has called a number of women during his campaign. Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don't think there is a woman anywhere who doesn't know what that feels like. So we know what Donald thinks and what he says and how he acts toward women. That's who Donald is.

Donald Trump creates word salads. And that is awful to language, because we try to parse out what he's saying and try to find meaning in it. Journalists don't have a choice about reporting what the president says. I find the idea - "Let's not write about his tweets" - to be absolutely ridiculous. I mean, he's the president! Of course, we have to write about his tweets and look at what they mean. The problem is, they're hollow. But we don't have the option of ignoring what he's saying because he's president. That's damaging to language, and to journalism.

Donald Trump is writing a different theme, which is it's midnight in America and that things are bad, and they're bleak, and they're gloomy and they're doomy, and the only thing that is going to save you is someone with the authority and power of somebody like me.

Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing to each of them a letter on behalf of your client.

Donna E. Smyth - adventures with words; she is always doing something new and unique. Beginning with her visceral morality, her stories are startling, nerve wracking, provocative: she combines Angela Carter's beautiful style with Patricia Highsmith's malevolent atmospheres. Smyth shatters clichs and dismisses mere sociology. She knows that pleasure is besieged by terror. She tells us what we don't want to know, but need to know. Smyth's writing disturbs us, enrichingly, because truth can never be at peace with language.

Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write.

Do not confuse understanding with a larger vocabulary, sacred writings are beneficial in stimulating desire for inward realization, if one stanza at a time is slowly assimilated. Continual intellectual study results in vanity and the false satisfaction of an undigested knowledge.

Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.

Do not copy my style! The first rule of writing is write about what you know, not what you think you know. So, think about what you've done in your life and write about that.

Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen.

Do not on any account attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once.

Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.

Do nothing to merely interest, assume or attract. This is not your province. Do only that wins the people you are after in the cheapest possible way

Do not write to impress others. Authors who write to impress people have difficulty remaining true to themselves. A better path is to write what pleases you and pray that there are others like you. Your first and most important reader is you. If you write a book that pleases you, at least you know one person will like it.

Don't apologize, justify or rationalize bad art or bad writing. If you do, you are part of it.

Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.

Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.

Do not slip into writing for the mind and the mind alone. In other words, do not play merely upon our ability to reason. And do not focus only on visuals. Write for the whole person.

Do not start a story unless you have an ending in mind. You can change the story's ending if you wish, but you should always have a destination.

Don Pedro - (...)'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.' Benedick - The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vildly painted; and in such great letters as they writes, 'Here is good horse for hire', let them signify under my sign, 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.

Don’t ask a writer what he’s working on. It’s like asking someone with cancer on the progress of his disease.

Don’t be afraid to discard work you know isn’t up to standard. Don’t save junk, just because it took you a long time to write it.

Don't be afraid to write bad songs and then start over and re-evaluate. Songs are like plants, in that you grow them. Some grow really fast, and others need pruning and care...And, finally, a song needs to move you. If it doesn't move you, it will never move anybody else.

Don’t be in too much of a rush to be published. There is enormous value in listening and reading and writing—and then putting your words away for weeks or months–and then returning to your work to polish it some more.

Don't be pretentious is my first advice to young writers. This is the big problem - just because you're getting an MFA doesn't mean you have to write for the Academy. Be true to your personality. Don't temper your personality down with words. Don't build defensive fortresses around yourself with words - words are your friends.

Don't be afraid to fail. I fail every day. I failed thousands of times writing The Book Thief, and that book now means everything to me. I had many doubts and fears about that book, but some of what I feel are the best ideas in it came to me when I was working away for apparently no result. Failure has been my best friend as a writer. It tests you, to see if you have what it takes to see it through.

Don't be didactic - don't write about poverty. Write about poor people. When you dramatize their lives and let life and characters be your inspiration, you will express the 'idea' dynamically and without preaching.

Don't be silly. I'll write you twice a week.

Don't be afraid to write crap - it makes the best fertilizer. The more you write the better your chances of growing something wonderful.

Don't be too concerned about the wingnut ears. Anxiety produces the wrong pheromones. Roll with the punches. Make time for life around your deep abiding need to write. Say Yes more, but not always. Say No enough that you have a life.

Don't dumb down; always write for your top five percent of readers.

Don't be too precious or attached to anything you write. Let things be malleable. For sketch writers, remember they're called sketches for a reason. They're not called oil paintings. Some of them are going to stink. You have to let them stink.

Don't come to New York until you've finished a book. It's too expensive. You'll never write anything. You'll spend all your time working to pay the rent.

Don’t ever trust anyone who’s writing a book. They make up lies for a living.

Don't fall into the trap of having to have everything perfect to write or wait until the mood strikes you. If you want it as a job, treat it like a job, and just as you don't go to work only when you feel like it, you have to condition yourself to sit and write even when the ideas don't flow.

Don't ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out.

Don't get me wrong, God Bless the farmers and cowboys. It just wasn't the life I wanted. When writing stories of other lands, I can describe people and places from actual experience. And for someone with an imagination like me, I could see dinosaurs and lost civilizations in the jungle of Vietnam.

Don't get it right, just get it written.

Don't ever write anything you don't like yourself and if you do like it, don't take anyone's advice about changing it. They just don't know.

Don't forget that Mozart worked on commission. He almost always would write something if he knew exactly who was paying for it and where it would be performed. So you can't really separate the creation of genius from the appreciation of it.

Don't get discouraged because there's a lot of mechanical work to writing. I rewrote the first part of Farewell to Arms at least fifty times.

Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. . . . Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader's trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don't diminish that belief. Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.

Don't just write a to-do list write a to-be list.

Don't lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don't have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don't know what it is yet.

Don't google your name. Ever. Don't “search” for yourself on anything that glows in the dark. Don't let your beauty be something anyone can turn off. Don't edit your ugly out of your bio. Let your light come from the fire. Let your pain be the spark, but not the timber. Remember, you didn't come here to write your heart out. You came to write it in.

Don't hate me for what tabloids write about me, because I guarantee it's a lie.

Don't have conversations taking place in empty space. Weave in background details of where the action (dialogue is a form of "action") is taking place. Don't have invisible people talking, either. Let the reader see them as they speak - their facial expressions and gestures. And by all means "cue" the speeches to the speakers.

Don’t just read the Bible. Start circling the promises. Don’t just make a wish. Write down a list of God-glorifying life goals. Don’t just pray. Keep a prayer journal. Define your dream.                 Claim your promise.                                   Spell your miracle.

Don't leave you to go find your point of view and your story. You are all you have been given . . . this is who you are, and from where you ought and need to write.