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Quotes about writing

377 quotes from 206 people

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I made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short.
Blaise Pascal1623–1662
I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
Blaise Pascal1623–1662Provincial Letters: Letter XVI (4 December 1656)
To write something long, sophisticated, and coherent means, at least in part, to become more complex, articulate, and deeper in personality.
Jordan Petersonborn 1962Beyond Order (2021), p. 185
Depend upon it, after all, Thomas, Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path.
Edgar Allan Poe1809–1849“Letter to Frederick W. Thomas” (February 14, 1849).
- Work
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.
Alexander Pope1688–1744An Essay on Criticism (1711)In context
I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.
Alexander Pope1688–1744The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Preface
Literature is news that STAYS news.
Ezra Pound1885–1972ABC of Reading (1934), Ch. 2 (p. 29 in the 1961 paperback)
- Reading
Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.
Terry Pratchett1948–2015Foreword to The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1998) by David Pringle, and The Definitive Illustrated Guide to Fantasy (2003) by David Pringle
- Clever Jabs
Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
Marcel Proust1871–1922
- Reading
I perceived that to express those impressions, to write that essential book, which is the only true one, a great writer does not, in the current meaning of the word, invent it, but, since it exists already in each one of us, interprets it. The duty and the task of a writer are those of an interpreter.
Marcel Proust1871–1922
Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.
Joseph Pulitzer1847–1911
Well, all I know is what I read in the papers.
Will Rogers1879–1935Nationally syndicated column number 42, Blames All Ills on Earthquake (1923)
- Comedy
- Journalism
There is quite enough sorrow and shame amd suffering and baseness in real life, and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction.
Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919
I write fiction and I’m told it’s autobiography, I write autobiography and I’m told it’s fiction, so since I’m so dim and they’re so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn’t.
Philip Roth1933–2018Deception: A Novel (1990)
I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you — it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.
Philip Roth1933–2018Deception: A Novel (1990)