The most solid advice . . . for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough. —William Saroyan More about this quote Tags: advice laughter living writing death taste food anger sleep Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
A couple of months ago I had a dream, which I remember with the utmost clarity. (I don't usually remember my dreams.) I dreamed I had died and gone to Heaven. I looked about and knew where I was — green fields, fleecy clouds, perfumed air, and the distant, ravishing sound of the heavenly choir. And there was the recording angel smiling broadly at me in greeting. I said in wonder, "Is this Heaven?" The recording angel said, "It is." I said (and on waking and remembering, I was proud of my integrity), "But there must be a mistake. I don't belong here. I'm an atheist." "No mistake," said the recording angel. "But as an atheist how can I qualify?" The recording angel said sternly, "We decide who qualifies. Not you." "I see," I said. I looked about, pondered for a moment, then turned to the recording angel and asked, "Is there a typewriter here that I can use?" The significance of the dream was clear to me. I felt Heaven to be the act of writing, and I have been in Heaven for over half a century, and I have always known this. —Isaac Asimov More about this quote Tags: integrity writing dreams atheism heaven Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I am, and always have been, a revolutionary writer, because our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality is an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes, our power wielded by cowards and weaklings, and our honor false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons. —George Bernard Shaw More about this quote Tags: power wisdom freedom writing law cowardice morality laws revolution honor order property Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow. —Lawrence Clark Powell More about this quote Tags: reading writing speech Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It is easier to produce ten volumes of philosophical writings than to put one principle into practice. —Leo Tolstoy More about this quote Tags: philosophy writing effort practice Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. —Oscar Wilde More about this quote Tags: writing quality books morality Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time. —Tallulah Bankhead More about this quote Tags: writing diaries bad girls Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
You do not write your life with words. You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do. —Patrick Ness in A Monster Calls More about this quote Tags: action life words writing Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Contrary to what many of you might imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks — chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write. —Fran Lebowitz More about this quote Tags: career writing Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon, I put it back in again. —Oscar Wilde More about this quote Tags: writing poems Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I didn't have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let's say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing! —Henry Miller More about this quote Tags: inspiration time writing Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Writer's block is what you get if you're too full of yourself and trying to be García Márquez. You sit and stare at the wall and nothing happens for you. It's like imagining you're a tree and trying to sprout leaves. Once you come to your senses and accept who you are, then there's no problem. I'm not García Márquez. I'm a late-middle-aged midlist fair-to-middling writer with a comfortable midriff, and it gives me quite a bit of pleasure. —Garrison Keillor More about this quote Tags: imagination writing pleasure problems Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing. —Bonnie Friedman More about this quote Tags: success writing persistence Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say. —Katherine Paterson More about this quote Tags: time writing perception Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It could be that there's only one word and it's all we need. It's here in this pencil. Every pencil in the world is like this. —W. S. Merwin More about this quote Tags: wonder writing possibility Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email