Quotes by category:Writing

Writing humor is not something every single person can do. by Celia Rivenbark

Writing humor is not something every single person can do.

Celia Rivenbark

single-person persons writing

So many writers come to class with one question dominant in their mind, 'How do I make a living from this?' It's a fair enough question and one I always try to answer well- but it saddens me that it so often overshadows the more relevant questions of 'why am I writing' and 'what am I saying' and 'how do I keep it honest.

mind writing class

I was a lot younger - when I wrote Water Lilies. I was like 26. It felt so natural to write about adolescence.

natural writing water

When writing poetry, it is not that produces a bright idea, but the bright idea that kindles the fire of.

fire writing ideas

In the mental disturbance and effort of writing, what sustains you is the certainty that on every page there is something left unsaid.

effort pages writing

Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.

writing talking two

Men who have a tempestuous inner life and do not seek to give vent to it by talking or writing are simply men who have no tempestuous inner life. Give company to a lonely man and he will talk more than anyone.

lonely writing men

Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared.

making-love poetry writing

Sometimes with certain writing, you feel like you've got to be literal, hit it hard on the nose, just to get the point across. Good writing is more subversive I think - or good scenes. They are about one thing on the page but you can make it about something completely different.

pages writing thinking

It is no fun at all to have been writing a book for seven or so years, especially when you've never published anything before.

writing fun book

There are things you do when you're writing that are so fun to do it's almost like they're private jokes that are amusing to you but no one else is going to enjoy them nearly as much and you worry you're going to have to take them out in the end.

worry writing fun

To my parents, writing seemed precarious and not the best idea. by Chad Harbach

To my parents, writing seemed precarious and not the best idea.

parent writing ideas

The effects of MFA programs, and the rise of creative writing instruction more generally, are far more diffuse than people think. Even if you're a writer who has avoided institutions your whole life, you're still going to be reading a lot of writers who have MFAs, and are affiliated with universities.

reading writing thinking

For me, the process always has to be pretty intense. I could never write just two or three days a week. It had to be every day.

three writing two

I think that it is very interesting to write about a team because a team is a group of people who work in very close quarters and have very intense relationships so - in my days of playing sports, I was very rarely on a team that did not have it's own peculiar dynamic, and you wind up having very intense feelings for good and for bad about these people with whom you spend many hours a day.

team writing sports

I tended to write the book in these bursts of two or three months at a time. So I would know, or at least feel securely, that for the next few months I was at least going to have a few hours a day.

writing two book

The idea of the writer who writes nineteen novels, with various ups and downs and levels of experimentation, isn't around so much now. There's a focus, I think, on fewer books, with more pressure on each book to succeed. With that there comes, I think, a certain pressure towards shapeliness in fiction. Towards neatness. And I think writers feel that, and it can effect how they write.

writing book thinking

A lot of my close friends had tolerantly washed their hands of the whole idea of me writing a book. They had said to themselves, "I don't know what he's doing."

writing book hands

Sometimes I write about things that never happened to me that wind up happening to me. When you put things out in the universe, sometimes they wind up coming true.

writing wind sometimes

It's more difficult to write a song about having your heart ripped out of your chest while you're in love. Because it lacks honesty. And the honesty comes through in the music, it really does.

honesty writing song