A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

difficulty writing

About Thomas Mann

Portrait of Thomas Mann

Paul Thomas Mann (6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and...

More quotations from Thomas Mann

No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.

vision recognition enlightenment

Nothing is stranger or more ticklish than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who meet and observe each other daily—no, hourly—and are nevertheless compelled to keep up the pose of an indifferent stranger, neither greeting nor addressing each other, whether out of etiquette or their own whim.

silence relationship communication strangers

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.

It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.

love strength death immortality

A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.

truth opposites

More quotations tagged with “writing”

Television has raised writing to a new low.

—Samuel Goldwyn

writing television

No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling.

—Eleanor Roosevelt

feeling writing thoughts value merit genuineness

After being Turned Down by numerous Publishers, he had decided to write for Posterity.

history writing rejection posterity

The author of genius does keep till his last breath the spontaneity, the ready sensitiveness, of a child, the “innocence of eye” that means so much to the painter, the ability to respond freshly and quickly to new scenes, and to old scenes as though they were new… This freshness of response is vital to the author’s talent… But there is another element to his character, fully as important to his success. It is adult, discriminating, temperate, and just. It is the side of the artisan, the workman, and the critic rather than the artist. It must work continually with and through the emotional and childlike side, or we have no work of art. If either element of the artist’s character gets too far out of hand the result will be bad work, or no work at all. The writer’s first task is to get these two elements of his nature into balance, to combine their aspects into one integrated character.

—Dorothea Brande in Becoming A Writer

career writing art work

A signature always reveals a man's character—and sometimes even his name.

writing personality signature

History

21 Nov 2014 Added