Quotes by category:Writing

The need to express one's self in writing springs from a maladjustment of life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action.

writing spring men

A great writer has a high respect for values. His essential function is to raise life to the dignity of thought, and this he does by giving it a shape.

essentials writing giving

Writing is a difficult trade which must be learned slowly by reading great authors; by trying at the outset to imitate them; by daring then to be original; by destroying one's first productions.

reading writing book

The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its auth... by Andre Maurois

The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author's life.

novel writing negative

One cannot simply decide to write apolitical poetry, in the way one decides to drink lemonade instead of tea, it's far more subliminal than that.

Andre Naffis-Sahely

writing tea way

I can't remember why or how I started writing, but I think it was always a way of making sense of the world.

writing world thinking

I never write with an actor in mind - never. by Andrea Arnold

I never write with an actor in mind - never.

actors mind writing

I grew up in a working-class family, so I guess you could say I w... by Andrea Arnold

I grew up in a working-class family, so I guess you could say I write from what I know.

grew-up writing class

I've never known a writer who didn't feel ill at ease in the world. We all feel unhoused in some sense. That's part of why we write. We feel we don't fit in, that this world is not our world, that though we may move in it, we're not of it. You don't need to write a novel if you feel at home in the world.

home writing moving

It's hard to explain how much one can love writing. If people knew how happy it can make you, we would all be writing all the time. It's the greatest secret of the world.

carpe-diem writing people

Writing is mysterious, and it's supposed to be...any path that gets you there is a good path in the end. But one true thing among all these paths is the need to tap a deep vein of connection between our own uncontrollable interior preoccupations and what we're most concerned about in the world around us. We write in response to that world; we write in response to what we read and learn; and in the end we write out of our deepest selves, the live, breathing, bleeding place where the picture forms, and where it all begins.

breathing self writing

The best children's book writers are not people who have kids, but people who write from the child within themselves.

writing book children

Most new writers think it's easy to write for children, but it's not. You have to get in a beginning, middle and end, tell a great story, write well, not be condescending-all in a few pages.

writing children thinking

The best advice I can give to any aspiring author is to write every single day. Work at the craft of writing. Take it seriously.

Andrea Davis Pinkney

writing advice giving

I have spent 20 years writing these books. Had I wanted to say men are beasts and scream, that takes 30 seconds.

writing men book

Writing is alchemy. Dross becomes gold. Experience is transformed. Pain is changed. Suffering may become song. The ordinary or horrible is pushed by the will of the writer into grace or redemption, a prophetic wail, a screed for justice, an elegy of sadness or sorrow. ... There is always a tension between experience and the thing that finally carries it forward, bears its weight, holds it in. Without that tension, one might as well write a shopping list.

pain writing song

I just like to express myself in the world around me. And I love writing, but sometimes it feels a little too minute. Sometimes, at the end of the day, there's just not enough colors involved - visually, there are just words on a page.

the-end-of-the-day color writing

I’d cut my soul into a million different pieces just to form a constellation to light your way home. I’d write love poems to the parts of yourself you can’t stand. I’d stand in the shadows of your heart and tell you I’m not afraid of your dark.

home heart writing

Don't google your name. Ever. by Andrea Gibson

Don't google your name. Ever.

pain heart writing

In your arms I forget what the yarn knows of sweaters. I forget how to hold myself together. So if I unfold now like a love letter tell me you'll write back soon. Tell me you'll still come untethered.

yarn writing inspirational