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Quotes about writing

377 quotes from 206 people

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When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children.
L. Frank Baum1856–1919Personal inscription on a copy of Mother Goose in Prose (1897) which he gave to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster, as quoted in The Making of the Wizard of Oz (1998) by Aljean Harmetz, p. 317
- Age
Doing magic, you not only have to be able to do a trick, you have to have a little story line to go with it. And writing is essentially a trick.
KKKen Kesey1935–2001Trip of a Lifetime (1999)
The artist deals in what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.
Ursula K. Le Guin1929–2018The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Introduction
- Art
There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature.
Washington Irving1783–1859The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)
You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better.
William Tecumseh Sherman1820–1891Letter to the City of Atlanta (September 1864)
- Journalism
- Truth & Lies
I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing — his sense of personal dignity.
Arthur Miller1915–2005Tragedy and the Common Man (1949)
Words are a medium that reduces reality to abstraction for transmission to our reason, and in their power to corrode reality inevitably lurks the danger that the words will be corroded too.
Yukio Mishima1925–1970Sun and Steel (1968), p. 9.
Writers started doing dystopias after we saw the effects of trying to build utopias that required, unfortunately, the elimination of a lot of people before you could get to the perfect point, which never arrived.
Margaret Atwoodborn 1939The Progressive interview (2010)
Minimum information given with maximum politeness.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis1929–1994Instructions to press secretary Pamela Turnure; Quoted in A Hero for Our Time (1983) by Ralph G Martin
- Journalism
All writers have concealed more than they revealed.
Anaïs Nin1903–1977The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5
I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.
Vladimir Nabokov1899–1977Strong Opinions (1973), p. 45
- Knowledge
It’s a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it’s equally assumed you’re lying your head off.
Margaret Atwoodborn 1939On Writing Poetry (1995)
- Truth & Lies
Anon is my favorite literary character.
P. L. Travers1899–1996The Paris Review interview (1982)
Writing is a lonely occupation at best.
Rachel Carson1907–1964Acceptance speech of the Achievement Award of the American Association of University Women, Washington, D.C., June 22, (1956)
Literature is analysis after the event.
Doris Lessing1919–2013The Golden Notebook (1962)