Best 30386 quotes in «writing quotes» category

Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counselling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, 'How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?' and avoid 'How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?'

Editorials are written by people who have agreed to have several strong opinions a day and to write them down, provided they do not have to sign their names.

Education is not simply to learn to read and write. It's emancipation. It makes you free.

Education is not complete unless we teach our children not only how to read and write but the difference between right and wrong.

Education, which was at first made universal in order that all might be able to read and write, has been found capable of serving quite other purposes. By instilling nonsense it unifies populations and generates collective enthusiasm.

Egotism exists everywhere, but it has a different flavor in England, where the tabloid culture goes much deeper. It's just the indulgence of vulgarity, the wallowing in vulgarity. As with everything English, there's a sort of irony to it. They write a great deal about these trivial people who have a certain eminence, always with a bit of, "Isn't it ridiculous that we are writing about this person?

Eighty percent of a picture is writing, the other twenty percent is the execution, such as having the camera on the right spot and being able to afford to have good actors in all parts.

Either I did away with that fear through writing, or in the course of writing, I discovered it was no longer so intrusive or threating. The bottom line is, it's gone.

Ek gret effect men write in place lite; Th'entente is al, and nat the lettres space.

Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer.

Elena Ferrante is the author of several novels. There is nothing mysterious about her, given how she manifests herself - perhaps even too much - in her own writing, the place where her creative life transpires in absolute fullness.

Eleanor Roosevelt fights for an anti-lynch law with the NAACP, with Walter White and Mary McLeod Bethune. And she begs FDR to say one word, say one word to prevent a filibuster or to end a filibuster. From '34 to '35 to '36 to '37 to '38, it comes up again and again, and FDR doesn't say one word. And the correspondence between them that we have, I mean, she says, "I cannot believe you're not going to say one word." And she writes to Walter White, "I've asked FDR to say one word. Perhaps he will." But he doesn't. And these become very bitter disagreements.

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.

E-mail creates the illusion that you're writing. You're not.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning could write a poem two pages long. Could she have brought it to a music publisher?

Embrace the melancholic voice completely in the drafting stages, to explore it for all it's worth. Then, in revision, privilege craft over pure feeling. Write the work that someone besides you will want to read.

Elizabeth Hay has intelligence coming out of her fingertips - integrity, insight, and wonder in every paragraph of her writing.She connects. She stirs and provokes.

[Elizabeth Moon's] antagonists are always evil moustache-twirlers. She could write a book about a golf open and the main rival to the hero would turn out to have clubs made from compressed kittens.

Elizabeth Searle writes with intelligence, passion and wit. She's one of the best young writers around.

E-mail also changed things in that you don't have to write a full document to discuss something. You can just send an e-mail to a list.

Emerging into writership, I have plans to discover my other themes, of nation and country, love and conflict, the body and transcendence, mutilation and wholeness, starvation and wicked plenty, and more. That is, I am already thinking ahead to more writing.

Elvis Costello's song writing is so peerless and individualistic. It's storytelling and it's deeply intelligent and clever.

Eloquence may be found in conversations and in all kinds of writings; it is rarely found when looked for, and sometimes discovered where it is least expected.

Emphasizing and rewarding length over quality results in worse writing and more reader abandonment.

Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.

Enchantment can be done with writing but I think enchantment is basically a prospective or an operating system for life. That you can enchant a person who is assigning your airplane seat, your hotel room, your waiter, your waitress.

Enduring fame is promised only to those writers who can offer to successive generations a substance constantly renewed; for every generation arrives upon the scene with its own particular hunger.

Energy seems to be the more critical of those two variables, because if I'm really feeling the push/pull to write, then I'll make the time.

Engrave this in your brain: EVERY WRITER GETS REJECTED. You will be no different.

England offers new comforts. I could write a novel there.

English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin - a language with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans.

English has always been my musical language. When I started writing songs when I was 13 or 14, I started writing in English because it's the language in between. I speak Finnish, I speak French, so I'll write songs in English because that's the music I listen to. I learned so much poetry and the poetic way of expressing myself is in English.

English of course is your major tool, but it is not nearly so important as other aspects of writing for example you have to have some natural ability you can't buy it no one puts it there you're born with it

English writing tends to fall into two categories - the big, baggy epic novel or the fairly controlled, tidy novel. For a long time, I was a fan of the big, baggy novel, but there's definitely an advantage to having a little bit more control.

Enough time had passed that I was ready to write the book Hungry. Was it absolutely difficult? Completely. I had to go back and relive one of the more traumatic things in my life. I destroyed my body for three years and I nearly killed myself for a passion that I had. But I was finally able to close the door on that part of my life. It also allowed me to have a voice. And that's something I've wanted since I was a young girl, to be able to be heard.

Entering into writing a poem is an emotional endeavor for me as well as a spiritual and creative one. Having to write those poems for the inauguration, I started asking deeper questions about my cultural identity, and my connection to America.

Enter the writing process with a childlike sense of wonder and discovery. Let it surprise you.

Enter the story as late as you can.

Equal interchange of goods and service between buyer and seller is the keynote of tomorrow's business world when the vision of the modern business man awakens him to the wisdom of writing that policy into his code of ethics.

Eragon started as me but ended up evolving into his very own character, .. Even as he has gone through his coming- of- age story, the process of writing and publishing these novels has been my own coming- of- age story. There are parallels between my own experience and Eragon's, but fortunately, I don't have people charging at me with swords.

Eric Peters' music is at the top of what gets played around my house, in my car and while I am running.  I am a big fan.  He writes incredibly honest and poetic lyrics coupled with memorable pop melodies and I can think of no better combination.

Enya never writes a bad melody. That's first and foremost her secret. As she goes along, she'll start changing the dynamics, pushing here and there so that not everything is perfectly in unison. It adds a texture you can acquire only from having different voices. The variations lead to interesting quirks. It's an integral part of the Enya sound.

Epithets, like pepper, Give zest to what you write; And if you strew them sparely, They whet the appetite: But if you lay them on too thick, You spoil the matter quite!

Eric Seven does not believe in love at first sight. He corrects himself. Even in that moment, the moment that it happens, he fees his journalist’s brain make a correction, rubbing out a long-held belief, writing a new one in its place. He did not believe in love at first sight. He thinks he might do so now.

Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity, we need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need Equality, and we kind of need it now. 'So why do you write these strong female characters?' Because you're still asking that question.

Especially on Broadway, composers and lyricists fretted over their creations, obsessed over every rhyme, every critical chord or interval. The stakes were so high. On Broadway, people were watching and judging, especially newspaper critics who knew a thousand ways to slice and dice a songwriter for the entertainment of hundreds of thousands of faithful readers. There was no anonymity for the Broadway songwriter. Even the best could find themselves stripped naked the morning after by the tastemakers and their readers.

Essentially, the scripts are not that different. Let's say, in literary terms, it's the difference between writing horizontally and writing vertically. In live television, you wrote much more vertically. You had to probe people because you didn't have money or sets or any of the physical dimensions that film will allow you. So you generally probed people a little bit more. Film writing is much more horizontal. You can insert anything you want: meadows, battlefields, the Taj Mahal, a cast of thousands. But essentially, writing a story is writing a story.

Eternity has no gray hairs! The flowers fade, the heart withers, man grows old and dies, the world lies down in the sepulchre of ages, but time writes no wrinkles on the brow of Eternity.

Especially as an artist who has been signed to one of the majors throughout my last ten years, you don't always get to write your own music.

Essayists write at a length that enables them, within a year, to explore a number of topics, whereas in a book, they'll likely only get to address one.