The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting. —Henry James More about this quote Tags: writing novels interest Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. —Samuel Johnson More about this quote Tags: reading writing language composition Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find. —Peter Ustinov More about this quote Tags: words writing criticism language Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you're allowed to sleep. It's always in the middle of the bloody night, or when you're half awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. —John Lennon More about this quote Tags: writing music letting go sleep night Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
He was one of those men who think that the world can be saved by writing a pamphlet. —Benjamin Disraeli More about this quote Tags: writing the world Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Everything true was too hard to write–he was too much to lose. Everything she felt for him was too hot to touch. —Rainbow Rowell in Eleanor & Park More about this quote Tags: emotions writing expression Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. —Robert Benchley More about this quote Tags: talent writing fame Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book. —Ronald Reagan More about this quote Tags: politics writing work rewards professions Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The worst thing that can happen to a writer is to become a Writer. —Mary McCarthy More about this quote Tags: writing misfortune Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I think I succeeded as a writer because I did not come out of an English department. I used to write in the chemistry department. And I wrote some good stuff. If I had been in the English department, the prof would have looked at my short stories, congratulated me on my talent, and then showed me how Joyce or Hemingway handled the same elements of the short story. The prof would have placed me in competition with the greatest writers of all time, and that would have ended my writing career. —Kurt Vonnegut More about this quote Tags: talent career writing English Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself. . . . Anybody can have ideas — the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph. —Mark Twain More about this quote Tags: words writing ideas achievement Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. —Elvis Costello More about this quote Tags: writing music architecture Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars. —Fred Allen More about this quote Tags: humor reading writing money buying Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams. —Bachelard More about this quote Tags: writing poetry art dreams Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. —Mark Twain More about this quote Tags: words writing meaning difference lightning Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email