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Quotes about writing

377 quotes from 206 people

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This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
?UnattributedOften credited to Dorothy Parker
- Reading
There are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.
Mark Twain1835–1910License of the Press (1873).
- Journalism
On the Japanese news, if the announcers had happy faces and perky voices, I knew that meant good news, such as that Japanese scientists had discovered a way to make VCR’s even more difficult for Americans to program; whereas if the announcers had serious voices and frowny faces, it meant bad news, such as the worsening eel shortage.
Dave Barryborn 1947
- Dave Barry
- Journalism
Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961Nobel Prize Speech (1954)
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim.’
Lyndon B. Johnson1908–1973Often credited to Margaret Thatcher
- Clever Jabs
- Journalism
More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
John Donne1572–1631Verse Letter to Sir Henry Wotton, written before April 1598, line 1
My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961
It is in their ‘good’ characters that novelists make, unawares, the most shocking self-revelations.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963A Preface to Paradise Lost
No matter what you do, somebody always imputes meaning into your books.
Dr. Seuss1904–1991
But what is the difference between literature and journalism? Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Critic as Artist Part I (1891), Wilde, Oscar, (1891 / 1905) The Critic As Artist Part II, in Intentions New York, Bretanos. Retrieved from Library of Congress Americana Archive.org 26 February 2018
- Journalism
- Reading
It’s a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
Andrew Jackson1767–1845
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
Tom Clancy1947–2013
We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
RWRobert Wilensky1951–2013
- Internet
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
ALA. J. Liebling1904–1963Often credited to H. L. Mencken
- Freedom
- Journalism
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