Quotes About Best Writing
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Becoming a writer is a lifelong journey. It cannot be learned in a day or even a month or a year. We will never fully learn all there is to know about our craft, and even if we did we wouldn't realize it. We are filled with self-doubt by nature, and many of us will work our entire lives to master the art of the written word without ever recognizing the true talent we possess. Writing is a personal journey of self-discovery and growth, and should be honored as such. If you wonder about my best writing, I would say it came without warning, in moments when I was most vulnerable - with the door shut and my heart split wide open. ~ Shanda Trofe Write From The Heart
There's no better satisfaction than writing. I feel that writing is the best and everything else comes with it. ~ Garry Marshall
As a piece of literacy criticism, Freud's best writing is about Dostoyevsky. It's a kind of displaced literacy criticism. ~ Dennis Potter
The high-school English teacher will be fulfilling his responsibility if he furnishes the student a guided opportunity, through the best writing of the past, to come, in time, to an understanding of the best writing of the present. He will teach literature, not social studies or little lessons in democracy or the customs of many lands. And if the student finds that this is not to his taste? Well, that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed. ~ Flannery O'Connor
I just personally feel like the best writing for actors exists in cable television. ~ Donal Logue
Write when you least feel like it,
Because that's when you write best. ~ Nema Al-Araby
The best writing takes you places you don't want to go. It drags you by the hair against your will and leaves you drained, shaky, spent. Sometimes with a bad taste in your mouth. ~ Penfist
So much of what we read nowadays is there one moment and gone the next. When you read something good, cherish it. ~ Carla H. Krueger
Write about what you care about. If you do that, you're probably going to do your best writing, reach off the page and touch the reader. How are you going to make the reader care if you don't care yourself? ~ Jerry Spinelli
To Grandma,
for being my first editor and giving me the best writing advice I've ever received: Christopher, I think you should wait until you're done with elementary school before worrying about being a failed writer. ~ Chris Colfer
This quiet place exists as we exist, here on the earth. It just is. That is where the best writing comes from and what we must connect with in order to write well. ~ Natalie Goldberg
I have learned how I work best, and that is something that, if you're going to be a professional writer, you should be noticing: under what circumstances you work at your best, and to not get yourself cornered into writing in a way that doesn't let you do your best. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin
Whether they write poems or don't write poems, poets are best. ~ Randall Jarrell
Cinema, which is influenced by every single part of life, is direct and reaches you immediately. And writing - the best writing is complex ideas communicated concisely. And music - if it's a good tune, make sure people can bloody hear it. ~ Alex Kapranos
In the 'Life' of George Eliot, John Walter Cross gave an intriguing account of Eliot's creative method. "She told me that, in all her best writing, there was a 'not herself' which took possession of her, and that she felt her own personality to be merely the instrument through which this spirit, as it were, was acting," Cross wrote. ~ Rebecca Mead
When I was younger I used to get my best writing done at night, but now it has to be during the day. I usually finish work at half past seven, then go back to the house to open a bottle of wine, have dinner, and then read or watch television. ~ Antony Beevor
Zachary Jernigan can't write a bad story. He couldn't even if he tried. Each and every time I start one of his inventive, carefully crafted, thoughtful and mind-bending tales I know I'm in for a treat. This collection is sci-fi at its intelligent best. ~ David Anthony Durham
I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned. ~ Wally Lamb
The best writing comes out when you find yourself broken. Your heart is ripped open and all the feelings spill out into a beautiful mess on paper. ~ Shannen Wrass
I don't think there's a less elitist thing on earth to do than to try and reach out and connect with another human being . . . And that's what the best writing does, that's what art does. It looks a reader in the eye, and it proceeds honestly with that reader, and nakedly. There is a compact there, a bond, a relationship, a union, a symbiosis . . . It's not about you. Whether you're a genius or an idiot savant. It's about the work. The work is more important than you. So it's not about back-claps and plaudits and "isn't that author smart." It's about, "this book really connected with me. And even though you, my friend, are very different from me, I'm lending it to you, because I think it will connect with you as well." Community. Across the eras. Between people who have never met, who will never meet, who are nonetheless bound in something together, in different ways. ~ Colin Fleming
I've always been drawn to the best writing that I can find. I don't care if it's in movies or theater or whatever - if you want to be in front of an audience, you have to do writing you believe in. ~ Ethan Hawke
I find my best writing time is actually 6 A.M., before the detritus of the day - the fish fingers and the school uniform and dogs and bills - have had a chance to clog up my brain. I can usually get 500 words done before 7 A.M. But it is difficult, and the Internet, and social networking, are terrible timesucks. ~ Jojo Moyes
The solutions are obvious. Stop making excuses. Stop saying women run publishing. Stop justifying the lack of parity in prominent publications that have the resources to address gender inequity. Stop parroting the weak notiong that you're simply publishing the best writing, regardless. There is ample evidence of the excellence of women writers. Publish more women writers. If women aren't submitting to your publication or press, ask yourself why, deal with the answers even if those answers make you uncomfortable, and then reach out to women writers. If women don't respond to your solicitations, go find other women. Keep doing that, issue after issue after issue. Read more widely. Create more inclusive measures of excellence. Ensure that books by mean and women are being reviewed in equal numbers. Nominate more deserving women for the important awards. Deal with your resentment. Deal with your biases. Vigorously resist the urge to dismiss the gender problem. Make the effort and make the effort and make the effort until you no longer need to, until we don't need to keep having this conversation.
Change requires intent and effort. It really is that simple. ~ Roxane Gay
If our goal is to write poetry, the only way we are likely to be any good is to try to be as great as the best. ~ Donald Hall
I get my best writing done when I'm supposed to be doing something else entirely. And that's why I keep my day job. ~ Joyce Rachelle
Television is what we're all very attracted to because that's where the best writing and the best characters are. ~ Ioan Gruffudd
The best writing advice I ever got was "Keep moving forward, don't retreat into rewrites." The worst came from a book that said "Writing fiction is like telling lies," which just seems stupid to me. ~ David B. Coe
I tend to be more of a novel writer. In fact, some of my novels started out as short stories, and I just got carried away! I think some of my best writing is in the short story form, but novels come more naturally to me. ~ Bruce Coville
My best writing has always been in journals. ~ Thomas Merton
Since I'm a fan of collections and anthologies, believe that the best writing often shines in shards and galloping stretches, I never find myself lobbying for a writer I enjoy reading regularly to hole up in Heidegger's hut for four or five years to bring forth a mountain. ~ James Wolcott
I think my one of my strengths in standup is my ability to adlib. I do all my best writing on stage. I can sit down and write jokes, but I'd rather go on stage with a premise or an idea and let the jokes come that way. My creative juices are never flowing any better than when I'm onstage. ~ Henry Cho
'Police Story' had some of the best writing on television, and one reason for that is because most of the scripts were based on real cases. ~ Michael Mann
The best writing is when one writes from the soul ~ Ndiritu Wahome
The best writing really does come from the deepest, most private part of you. ~ Michael Arndt
Some of the best writing I've done, whether I'm shooting a story or thinking of a script, I write it in my head as I'm running. Running literally jogs my brain. ~ Natalie Morales
There are times when the best writing you can do is to go for a walk or drive, a long drive is ideal. ~ Terry Pratchett
I do my best writing between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.. Almost every friend I have who is a consistently productive writer, does their best writing between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. My quota is two crappy pages per day. I keep it really low so I'm not so intimidated that I never get started. I will do the gathering of interviews and research throughout the day. I'll get all my notes and materials together and then I'll do the synthesis between 10 p.m. to bed, which is usually 4 or 5 a.m. ~ Tim Ferriss
Writing can't be too calculated. My best writing is when I set it aside, move on. It's not when I'm crafting a sentence, thinking about what word should follow another. ~ Nathaniel Philbrick
The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader. ~ Ben Okri
Writing is the greatest thing that can happen to a human being. It's the best. ~ Joss Whedon
I write storys to entertain not to be the best ~ Lemony Snicket
Though old the thought and oft exprest, Tis his at last who says it best. ~ James Russell Lowell
All my best writing was written before 1982, and then a significant event happened to me: I was born. ~ Jarod Kintz
Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I'm a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best? ~ Jay-Z
I like to believe my suspense novels marry the strong characters from my romance writing past, with the twisty, clever plots of my mystery writing present. ~ Lisa Gardner
The first thing to ask when writing a sentence is 'What am I trying to do?' ~ Stanley Fish
I loved it so much I was sorry to finish it. I closed the book and shocked myself by thinking, This is better than life. I didn't mean or want to think this, but I'm afraid I did. Certainly this feeling about a book is the one that makes people want to write. I don't know why I feel more alive when I write, but I do. ~ Siri Hustvedt
I used to be an obsessive outliner - figuring that writing without an outline was like jumping off a cliff and building a parachute on the way down. ~ Robin Wasserman
Writing a screenplay needs to be more than words on a page - and by the way, I think the words on the page are something you have to try to execute on the highest level you can; I'm not dismissing that by any regard. ~ John Ridley
I think maybe today a poem I hope
after breakfast I start trying
pulling it out of my own gut
mostly by force ~ John Thomas Idlet
I graduated with a B.A. from Goddard College in 1991 and then studied poetry for a year in the M.F.A. in Writing Program at Vermont College. ~ Jennifer McMahon
Writing isn't a job so much as a compulsion. I've been writing since I was very young because for some strange reason, I must write, and also because when I write, I feel more alive and closer to the world than when I'm not writing. ~ Siri Hustvedt
Over the years, there certainly have been plenty of ideas that I've had and given up on, but for this one, the only thing that was standing in its way was me doing it - I just had to write it ... And then if it didn't happen, it didn't happen. But I didn't want it to be for lack of effort on my part, so I had hunch that it would be a good story and that we would work well together. And it certainly worked out that way. ~ Paul Reiser
People always write on my Facebook that they've seen somebody they thought was me on the subway, and I was cursing badly. ~ Gary Shteyngart
I've always felt profoundly about what's going on in the world on a daily basis. What I hadn't felt was that I was at a point in my writing career where I could write about these things in songs and do it well. ~ PJ Harvey
I really become the characters when I'm writing them. I'll become one or two of them more than others, I'm consistent that way. ~ Quentin Tarantino
I started to read my first book at about the age of six. I started to write a book simultaneously. Not to compete, just to augment. And that's how one starts. Or I started. ~ Gore Vidal
A writer is like a tuning fork: We respond when we're struck by something. The thing is to pay attention, to be ready for radical empathy. If we empty ourselves of ourselves we'll be able to vibrate in synchrony with something deep and powerful. If we're lucky we'll transmit a strong pure note, one that isn't ours, but which passes through us. If we're lucky, it will be a note that reverberates and expands, one that other people will hear and understand. ~ Roxana Robinson
I believe the personal is the collective. One of the ironies of writing memoir is in using the "I" it becomes an alchemical "we." This is the sorcery of literature. ~ Terry Tempest Williams
Bricks without straw are more easily made than imagination without memories. ~ Lord Dunsany
My first job on the radio was writing jokes for a Baltimore DJ called Johnny Walker, who was sort of a '70s era shock jock who all the teenage boys listened to in my school. ~ Ira Glass
Flannery O'Connor's writing is quite dark, but it is so because she believes in the Devil, and in the Fall, and in humanity as it is. Novels that avoid the horror of human existence in this time between Eden and New Jerusalem can reinforce a Christian's tendency to Pelagianism. The Christian gospel isn't "clean" and "safe" and "family-friendly." It comes to its narrative climax at a bloody Place of the Skull and in a borrowed grave. ~ Russell D. Moore
The unspoken factor is love. The reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it's not work for me. ~ John Irving
Fiction writers are strange beasts. They are, like all writers, observers first and foremost. Everything that happens to and around them is potential material for a story, and they look at it that way. ~ Terry Brooks
There was a spectator in me who, even while I squirmed and obeyed, remained observant, note taking for some future revision. ~ Virginia Woolf
When students learn to wrestle with questions about purpose, audience, and genre, they develop a conceptual view of writing that has lifelong usefulness in any communicative context. ~ John C. Bean
Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. ~ Steven Pressfield
I write not for the sake of glory. Not for the sake of fame. Not of the sake of success. But for the sake of my soul. ~ Rachel Scott
In Murakami's short story 'The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day,' the main character is a writer. In describing the act of writing to a tightrope walker, he says, 'What a writer is *supposed* to do is observe and observe and observe again, and put off making judgments to the last possible moment.' I think that is a beautiful description of writing; it lets the world be, but also there is a moment, finally, of some kind of opinion. There is that moment, but to hold it off is a lovely and worthwhile goal. ~ Aimee Bender
People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true crime tale, we find ourselves fascinated because we're trying to understand why people behave the way they do, why they make the choices they do, how we become who we become. ~ Dan Chaon
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. ~ Ernest Hemingway,
Creativity is nature. Nature is creativity. ~ A.D. Posey
Nature is amazing wonder. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita
On movies, I like to involve the cast in the writing of the script. I like to have a rehearsal period, after which I do the last draft, which gives me a chance to incorporate anything the actors have come up with during the rehearsal period, so I'm very inclusive as a writer. ~ John Cleese
There can't be art without risk. It's like saying No Sex, and then expecting there to be children. ~ Francis Ford Coppola
Teaching Ramanujan was like writing on a blackboard covered with excerpts from a more interesting lecture. ~ Lawrence Young
I've tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I'm afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred. ~ Ernest Hemingway,
So we went to bed, assaulted by sleep that fumed at us from medicine glasses, or was wielded from small sweet-coated tablets
dainty bricks of dream wrapped in the silk stockings of oblivion. ~ Janet Frame
How do our philosophers act? Do they not inscribe their signatures to the very essays they write on the propriety of despising glory. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
It is certainly very hard to write about sex in English without making it unattractive. ~ Edmund Wilson
I'm not very popular, because they're bleak and they're mournful and all the rest of it and I get censorious reviews. But I'm only writing fiction. I'm not making munitions, so I think it's acceptable. ~ Anita Brookner
Inspiration for my short stories grows from a psychic kernel, a vision of some sort or an eccentric, colorful dream. ~ Lawren Leo
I sat down and tried to write a story.
"Ian MacArthur is a wonderful sweet fellow who wears glasses and peers out of them with delight."
That was the first sentence. The problem was that I just couldn't think of the next one. After cleaning my room three times, I decided to leave Ian alone for a while because I was starting to get mad at him. ~ Stephen Chbosky
Susan Griffin describes it as a time when "there is no intrinsic authority to my words." "I ... clean off my desk. I make telephone calls. I know I am avoiding the typewriter. I know that in my mind, where there might be words, there is simply a blankness. I may try to write and then my words bore me." But when the time is right, the waiting will have been worth it. "Because each time I write, each time the authentic words break through, I am changed. The older order that I was collapses and dies. I lose control. I do not know exactly what words will appear on the page. I follow language. I follow the sound of the words, and I am surprised and transformed by what I record." Excerpt from "Thoughts on Writing: A Diary," in The Writer on her Work. ~ Judith Barrington
Writer's block is a phony, made up, BS excuse for not doing your work. ~ Jerry Seinfeld
The last chapter in 'Alice in Worcestershire' is called 'Writing the book'.
I started to write that 'Diary' chapter at the very beginning of the process and followed it through to the end... speaking to the reader.
My decision to do this was because I've often read autobiographies and wondered how the author felt and how it impacted them writing about painful memories that had been locked away in a deep forgotten place.
I wanted to know what was going in their 'present' life while they were writing; about the struggle with sharing their inner secrets and... I'm... inquisitive. (nosy)!
It took me over five years to finish 'Alice in Worcestershire' because sometimes, I was simply too drained to continue. Periodically, I updated the 'Diary' chapter and, thankfully, it's enthusiastically appreciated by readers. ~ Eskay Teel
Not infrequently it turns out that a writer whom people have long credited with an extraordinary depth of ideas whom they have expected to exert an extraordinary and major influence on the direction of society, displays in the end such a watered down and minuscule version of his basic little idea that no one is even sorry that he's succeeded in writing himself out. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
All of the great mythologies and much of the mythic story-telling of the world are from the male point of view. When I was writing The Hero with a Thousand Faces and wanted to bring female heroes in, I had to go to the fairy tales. These were told by women to children, you know, and you get a different perspective. It was the men who got involved in spinning most of the great myths. The women were too busy; they had too damn much to do to sit around thinking about stories. [...]
In the Odyssey, you'll see three journeys. One is that of Telemachus, the son, going in quest of his father. The second is that of the father, Odysseus, becoming reconciled and related to the female principle in the sense of male-female relationship, rather than the male mastery of the female that was at the center of the Iliad. And the third is of Penelope herself, whose journey is [...] endurance. Out in Nantucket, you see all those cottages with the widow's walk up on the roof: when my husband comes back from the sea. Two journeys through space and one through time. ~ Joseph Campbell