Best 30386 quotes in «writing quotes» category

I have always been attracted to male writers who can demonstrate their love and affection for women with ease, yet not draw attention to themselves.

I have always kept my heart prisoner behind the bars of my rib cage where it is in a 30" x 26" cell while the rest of the world lives well, wild and free to let their hearts weather against the harsh conditions, going numb to the cold, and becoming indifferent to the constant climate change that happens with time and age. My heart has never been that exposed; I have not let it be. Every time my heart is up and ready for release, I let it out into the world only briefly— try to get it back into civilian life— but it ends up right back in the pen, because it is not true that I have ever let it wear on my sleeve... ...it's too damn good for that.

I have always believed in the principle that immediate survival is more important than long-term survival.

I have a pesky little critic in the back of my mind. He's a permanent fixture and passes judgment on everything I write. In order to placate him, especially when I'm endeavoring to write anything as ambitious as a novel, I have to constantly mutter, 'I'm not writing a masterpiece, I'm not writing a masterpiece.' This mantra lulls him into a kind of stupor so that he pays no attention to what I'm doing, because after all, I'm not claiming it's any good. Slowly, and secretly, one page at a time, I write my story. I know I've succeeded when he grudgingly admits, 'That's pretty good.' And if I'm lucky, every once in a while, I blow him away.

I have always loved being behind the camera. I love how it sets you apart in a crowd, so that you can float at the edges, pausing only occasionally to capture a moment. In its own way it’s easier than writing. As a writer, I have to know people, to talk to them, to barge into silences with a dozen of those little lighthearted quips that lead up to a conversation. And even then, they’re guarded around you. Nobody wants their drunken conversation written down somewhere. Being a photographer is different. People come to you. They smile. They flirt. They make sure you see only their best side. Nobody wants to upset the camera.

I have always lusted after a sepia-toned library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a sliding ladder. I fantasie about Tennessee Williams' types of evenings involving rum on the porch. I long for balmy slightly sleepless nights with nothing but the whoosh of a wooden ceiling fan to keep me company, and the joy of finding the cool spot on the bed. I would while away my days jotting down my thoughts in a battered leather-bound notebook, which would have been given to me by some former lover. My scribbling would form the basis of a best-selling novel, which they wold discuss in tiny independent bookshops on quaint little streets in forgotten corners of terribly romantic European cities. In other words, I fantasize about being credible, in that artistic, slightly bohemian way that only girls with very long legs can get away with.

I have been, I think, altogether disparaging about the ‘escapist’ elements of the genre, emphasizing its powers to address social, moral and even philosophical issues at the expense of celebrating its dreamier virtues. I took this position out of a genuine desire to defend a fictional form I love from accusations of triviality and triteness, but my zeal led me astray. Yes, fantastic fiction can be intricately woven into the texture of our daily lives, addressing important issues in fabulist form. But it also serves to release us for a time from the definitions that confine our daily selves; to unplug us from a world that wounds and disappoints us, allowing us to venture into places of magic and transformation.

I have come to see this fear, this sense of my own imperilment by my creations, as not only an inevitable, necessary part of writing fiction but as virtual guarantor, insofar as such a thing is possible, of the power of my work: as a sign that I am on the right track, that I am following the recipe correctly, speaking the proper spells. Literature, like magic, has always been about the handling of secrets, about the pain, the destruction and the marvelous liberation that can result when they are revealed. Telling the truth, when the truth matters most, is almost always a frightening prospect. If a writer doesn’t give away secrets, his own or those of the people he loves; if she doesn’t court disapproval, reproach and general wrath, whether of friends, family, or party apparatchiks; if the writer submits his work to an internal censor long before anyone else can get their hands on it, the result is pallid, inanimate, a lump of earth. The adept handles the rich material, the rank river clay, and diligently intones his alphabetical spells, knowing full well the history of golems: how they break free of their creators, grow to unmanageable size and power, refuse to be controlled. In the same way, the writer shapes his story, flecked like river clay with the grit of experience and rank with the smell of human life, heedless of the danger to himself, eager to show his powers, to celebrate his mastery, to bring into being a little world that, like God’s, is at once terribly imperfect and filled with astonishing life. Originally published in The Washington Post Book World

I have dreamed of that song, of the strange words to that simple rhyme-song, and on several occasions I have understood what she was saying, in my dreams. In those dreams I spoke that language too, the first language, and I had dominion over the nature of all that was real. In my dream, it was the tongue of what is, and anything spoken in it becomes real, because nothing said in that language can be a lie. It is the most basic building brick og everything. In my dreams I have used that language to heal the sick and to fly; once I dreamed I kept a perfect little bed-and-breakfast by the seaside, and to everyone who came to stay with me I would say, in that tongue, 'Be whole.' and they would become whole, not be broken people , not any longer, because I had spoken the language of shaping.

I have been guilty of writing words. I have not been guilty of believing in them.

I have decided on my destiny; accepted by calling as writing for God.

I have closed my study door on the world and shut myself away with people of my imagination. For nearly sixty years I have eavesdropped with impunity on the lives of people who do not exist. I have peeped shamelessly into hearts and bathroom closets. I have leaned over shoulders to follow the movements of quills as they write love letters, wills and confessions. I have watched as lovers love, murderers murder and childern play their make-believe. Prisons and brothels have opened their doors to me; galleons and camel trains have transported me across sea and sand; centuries and continents have fallen away at my bidding. I have spied upon the misdeeds of the mighty and witnessed the nobility of the meek. I have bent so low over sleepers in their beds that they might have felt my breath on their faces. I have seen their dreams.

I have graduated to the extent of not asking what is happening in my life because I trust the maker(God).

I have hope in who I am becoming. I have belief in every scar and disgraceful word I have ever spoken or been told because it is still teaching me and I have hope in who I am becoming. They say it takes 756 days to run to someone you love and they also say that the only romance worth fighting for is the one with yourself and I know by now that they say a lot of things, people talking everywhere without saying a word, but if it took me all those years to learn myself or teach myself how to look into the mirror without breaking it I know for a fact that it was a fight worth fighting. I stood up for my own head and so did my heart and we are coming to terms with ourselves. Shaking hands, saying ”let’s make this work for we have places to go and people to see and we will need each other” So I have hope in who I am becoming. It’s July and I have hope in who I am becoming.

I have fallen in love with writing, unknowingly. Instead of thinking whether people will like what I write or not, I decide to write only for one person- myself! I told myself that ‘I as an author is going to entertain I as an audience.’ And everything changed that day! When you find your passion, don’t succumb to the pressure of succeeding.Follow your passion just for yourself and for the sheer joy of it. You will see amazing things will follow- that’s a guarantee.

I have found a higher calling; inspirational-writing! I can’t imagine myself doing any other work, when I ought to write and transmit, awe-inspiring-words, to the souls longing for it.

I have high hopes for the book and have already made a down payment on a Ferrari. Well, it’s actually a small metal model of a Ferrari, kind of like a Dinky Toy, but a little bit bigger.

I have inflammation of the imagination.

I have kept this diary doggedly, day by day, because I believe a continuous record, no matter how full of trivialities, will always gradually reveal something of the subconscious mind behind it. I’ve never regretted keeping a diary yet. There are always a few nuggets of literary value under all that sand.

I have found that unless I make myself some office hours and stick to them - 8.30 to 11 A.M. and 1 to 3 P.M.- I son't do any writing. I pick some wild flowers and arrange them, wash the dog, and make a cake, and then it's too late to start this morning. So I read another chapter of the book I started last night and go swimming. Morning is really the time your mind is clearest, I remember being told. There's no sense in trying to start writing in the afternoon. So I'll write to-morrow. I really will. But I wouldn't if I didn't have my office hours. If I can't think of anything to write about, I just sit in front of the typewriter and brood.

I have learned to thank God for what I cannot see, I have learned to trust God with what I cannot.

I have my priorities and I know my purpose. I do not Praise God because of my pain but I praise Him because of what the pain is producing.

I have never created anything in my life that did not make me feel, at some point or another, like I was the guy who just walked into a fancy ball wearing a homemade lobster costume.

I have never felt like I was creating anything. For me, writing is like walking through a desert and all at once, poking up through the hardpan, I see the top of a chimney. I know there's a house under there, and I'm pretty sure that I can dig it up if I want. That's how I feel. It's like the stories are already there. What they pay me for is the leap of faith that says: "If I sit down and do this, everything will come out OK.

I have never seen so many ugly dresses. I cannot find this dress, which was woven out of daydreams and naiveté.

I have never killed anyone, fictional or otherwise. I have no idea what it’s like to kill someone, but it seems like it would be horrible. One of my biggest goals in life is to get through it without knowing anything of what it’s like to kill another human being. People die. That’s true in novels, and it’s true in life. Dying is one of the very few things we all do. To deny or ignore the omnipresent reality of death seems to me a disservice to human beings. That said, acknowledging in my novels that death exists does not make me a murderer any more than acknowledging that cancer can be treated makes me an oncologist.

I have never learned how to tell somebody something good about myself; that should be a secret they must find out .

I have no talent; it's just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.

I have no doubt at all the Devil grins, As seas of ink I spatter. Ye gods, forgive my "literary" sins -- The other kind don't matter.

I have no problem in moving a date one way or another or coming up with a subplot that gets my characters in (or out) of a fix more rambunctiously than the extant records show.

I have nothing to do each day, but write, drink, and run out of money.

I haven't written in a week. It's like holding your breath under water. You feel an awful constriction and then the instinct to propel yourself.

I haven't noticed that horror gets any less respect than most fictional genres. Many of the most notable classics (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the works of Edgar Allan Poe) are horror. Even Dickens' A Christmas Carol, one of the most famous and most celebrated stories of all time is, at its core, a horror story with all of its ghosts, hauntings, and macabre imagery. So horror, from my experience, gets its fair share of respect.

I have often believed the pen to be a needle, and ink to be a thread. Each story is an intricately woven tapestry and with each word I invariably sew a piece of myself into the page.

I have seen authors saying their agents have told them to change their genre to another. For instances, YA genre is re-classified as historical romance or Contemporary Romance is now Women's Fiction to fit market trends. It's important for authors to be flexible, but they should keep writing what they love to write. Writing is a profession, I understand, but it is also an art. Be true to it.

I have plenty of information now, but I can't get it into words. I'm afraid it's too big a task for me. I wonder if I will find everything in life too big for my abilities. Well, time will tell." Theodore Roosevelt, writing in naval history in his spare time while in law school

I have stories to write and places to visit, and legends are like the wind––intangible and fleeting.

I have talents that I'm not supposed to have: I can tell who crushes on who by how they stand, I can read strides, I can hear the tonal differences between an alto and a soprano singing the same line so clearly that to me they sing entirely different notes, and I can read through the lines and tell when a person doesn't need to be writing at all. That, that is what makes me a snob, because I cannot abide a person putting pen to paper or fingers on keys when they don't need to, when word choice is not as relevant and demanding and essential to them as breathing and syntax is about being correct and not about being evocative.

I have the heart of an artist and the soul of a writer.

I have pulled threads from magic tapestries already woven and used them to weave my own cloth.

I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter." (Letter 16, 1657)

I have to know if you'll read this the same way that I wrote it, because if you can't, then you're nothing more than a rough draft that I don't care to edit.

I have this idea that writing is all about divergent thinking colliding with a hurricane of emotions.

I have the word of God and my bible is very interesting, this book was conceived in battle, Jesus Christ our Saviour was conceived in brokenness, out of barenness to redeem a people who were in bondage to their sin. I know exactly where to go when the people start getting confused, trading lies for truth, buying injustice for justice and even when the media starts to show me the prospectives of the world that I am living in, I have my prospective from the word of God.

I have yet to find that one perfect phrase that epitomizes all the mysteries of the universe. Luckily, I doubt to ever pen it in this lifetime, for then the seeking ends; miserable is the day the adventure ends.

I heart my job. I get to make things up for a living.

I hereby grant you permission to write crap. The more the better. Remember, crap makes the best fertilizer.

I hear there are now Knightsbridge clinics offering semicolonic irrigation – but for many it may be too late.

I held your hand tightly in the rain Until I realized you had let me go-- I was holding on in vain, I was holding on in pain.

I hope for what I always hope for as a writer: a critical but kind reader. I think that is what we all hope for.