Well then – I see two ways of letting things take their course – Create one’s own sensations with the help of a flamboyant collision of rare words – not often, mind you – or else neatly draw the angles, the squares, the entire geometry of feelings – those of the moment, naturally.

~ Jacques Vaché

Jacques Vaché Art Creativity Writing

The novel cannot submit to authority.

~ Julian Gough

Julian Gough Novel Writing

A sense of mission lostin ink'sjagged outcrops.I was trying to tell myselfwhat I must have knownbeforein a formI wouldn't recognize at first.

~ Rae Armantrout

Rae Armantrout Knowing Recognition Writing

Every word Martone sets down, finally, a choice that limits the universe, their trail across the page a fossil record of some life's life-story.

~ Michael Martone

Michael Martone Record Story Writing

Because of the earth’s roundness, Genghis Khan, in the fever of possession and destruction, hastened his own overthrow by invading lands that he had already razed and conquered. Not only is it impossible to know from where we come, but also from whom we come: nothing in common, in any case, with those who pass for being the “authors of our days” – which days? Better to invent a genealogy based on pure whim and the leanings of our hearts, but what if they don’t agree?

~ André Breton

André Breton Creativity Literature Writers Writing

Neither black/red/yellow nor woman but poet or writer. For many of us, the question of priorities remains a crucial issue. Being merely a writer without a doubt ensures one a status of far greater weight than being a woman of color who writes ever does. Imputing race or sex to the creative act has long been a means by which the literary establishment cheapens and discredits the achievements of non-mainstream women writers. She who happens to be a (non-white) Third World member, a woman, and a writer is bound to go through the ordeal of exposing her work to the abuse and praises and criticisms that either ignore, dispense with, or overemphasize her racial and sexual attributes. Yet the time has passed when she can confidently identify herself with a profession or artistic vocation without questioning and relating it to her color-woman condition.

~ Trinh T. Minh-Ha

Trinh T. Minh-Ha Writing

Writing does not exist unless there is someone to read it, and each reader will take something different from a novel, from a chapter, from a line.

~ Claire Fuller

Claire Fuller Reading Reading Quotes Writing Writing Quotes

I learned from the age of two or three that any room in our house, at any time of day, was there to read in, or be read to.

~ Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty Books Creativity Reading Writing

Words and magic are two powerful forces that can change the world.

~ Amy Neftzger

Amy Neftzger Change Change The World Force Forces Magic Persuasion Word Choice Words Writing

I cry often. I cry and cleanse my face with my tears and swim to the center of it all. A center that I have written about a thousand times, forever etched into the porcelain.

~ A.p. Sweet

A.p. Sweet Cleanse Crying Swim Tears Writing

A good approach is to allow one dream per novel. Then, in the final revision, go back and get rid of that, too.

~ Howard Mittelmark

Howard Mittelmark Funny Writing

The internet is killing the art of writing. The big publish button begs you to publish even before you go back and make one single edit, and as if this was not enough, you have instant readers who praise your writing skills!-

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Bangambiki Habyarimana Author Author Quotes Bangambiki Book Book Lovers Book Quote Book Quotes Books Creation Creativity Creativity Quotes Criticism Edit Editing Editing Quotes Edition How To Edit How To Publish How To Publish A Book How To Write How To Write A Book How To Write A Novel How To Write Fiction Imagination Quotes Imagination Writing Inspiration Internet Internet Publishing Internet Publishing Quotes Internet Quotes Online Publishing Online Publishing Quotes Paper Positive Criticism Praise Publish Publish Button Self Publishing Self Publishing Quotes Self Publishing Tips Success In Writing The Great Pearl Of Wisdom Writers And Writing Writers Block Writers Inspiration Writers Life Writers Lives Writers On Thinking Writers On Writing Writers Quotes Writers Quotes Books Writers World Writing Writing Advice Writing Books Writing From The Heart Writing From The Soul Writing Inspiration Writing Life Writing Philosophy Writing Process Writing Secrets Writing Skill Writing Success Writing Success Quotes Writing Tip Writing Tips

What I've learned about writing is that sometimes less is more, while often more is grander. And both are true.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Richelle E. Goodrich Amwriting Author Richelle Richelle E Goodrich Richelle Goodrich Writer Writers Writers On Writing Writers Quotes Writers World Writing

Writing is the new reading

~ Emlyn Hall

Emlyn Hall Diary Of A Reading Teenage Writing Young Adult Fiction

The childhood of a spoiled prince could be framed within half a page, a moonlit dash through sleepy villages was one rhythmically emphatic sentence, falling in love could be achieved in a single word - a glance. The pages of a recently finished story seemed to vibrate in her hand with all the life they contained.

~ Ian Mcewan

Ian Mcewan Author Writing

[Y]ou cannot mention everything in its proper place, you must choose, between the things not worth mentioning and those and those even less so.

~ Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett Authorship Storytelling Writing

You never know, of course, when you write a book what its fate will be. Sink out of sight, soar to the sun–who knows. I love this quote from Frances Mayes. It pretty much sums up the Great Unknown of book writing.

~ Frances Mayes

Frances Mayes Books Writing

Always choose love over fear.

~ A.d. Posey

A.d. Posey Ad Posey Always Choose Inspirational Love Stories Story Storytellers Storytelling Write Writers Writing Writing Quotes

Novelists,’ said Ivo, ‘are to the nineties what cooks were to the eighties, hairdressers to the seventies and pop-stars to the sixties… Merely, you know, an expression of the Zeitgeist, Nobody actually reads novels any more, but it’s a fashionable thing to be a novelist – as long as you don’t entertain people of course. I sometimes think,’ said Ivo, his eyes like industrial diamonds, ‘that my sole virtue is, I’m the only person in London who has no intention of writing any kind of novel, ever.

~ Amanda Craig

Amanda Craig 90S Books Fashionable London Novels The Nineties Writing Zeitgeist

No, I am not imagining a book-burning, warmongering, anti-intellectual fascist regime – in my plan, there is no place for re ghters who light up the Homers and Lady Murasakis and Cao Xueqins stashed under your bed – because, for starters, I’m not banning literature per se. I’m banning the reading of literature. Purchasing and collecting books and other forms of literature remains perfectly legitimate as long as you don’t peruse the literature at hand.

~ Kyoko Yoshida

Kyoko Yoshida Asia Ban Book Burning Books Bookshelf Collecting Books Fascist Intellectual Ireadbooksactually Legitimate Literature Readers Reading Singapore Literature Writing

We are the thoughts we choose to keep.

~ A.d. Posey

A.d. Posey Ad Posey Choose Inspirational Keep Stories Story Storytellers Storytelling Thoughts Write Writers Writing Writing Quotes

OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer, but if it is a good word and has no exact modern equivalent equally good, it is good enough for the good writer. Indeed, a writer's attitude toward obsolete words is as true a measure of his literary ability as anything except the character of his work. A dictionary of obsolete and obsolescent words would not only be singularly rich in strong and sweet parts of speech; it would add large possessions to the vocabulary of every competent writer who might not happen to be a competent reader.

~ Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce Courage Modern Obsolete Words Writing

Let your story grow. Let it surprise you, and it will certainly surprise your readers.

~ M. Kirin

M. Kirin Inspiration Writer Writer Inspiration Writing Writing Advice

To write is your last resort when you've betrayed someone.

~ Jean Genet

Jean Genet Betrayal Writing

How many things can I do without?

~ Socrates

Socrates Learning Living Writing

Writing things was important, wasn't it? Nakata asked.'Yes, it was. The process of writing was important. Even though the finished product is completely meaningless.

~ Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami Writing

In writing, a good guy must never break any of the Ten Commandments. A bad guy must break every one. That's why writing female characters is so much fun. They're not GUYS at all.

~ Kimberly Black

Kimberly Black Bad Guys Good Guys Strong Female Characters Strong Women Women Workbooks Writing

I’ve always loved the night, when everyone else is asleep and the world is all mine. It’s quiet and dark—the perfect time for creativity.

~ Jonathan Harnisch

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Being an artist doesn't take much. Just everything you got. Which means of course that as the process is giving you life, it is also bringing you closer to death. But it's no big deal. They are one in the same and cannot be avoided or denied. So when I totally embrace this process, this life/death, and abandon myself to it completely, I transcend all this gibberish and hang out with the gods. It seems to me that that is worth the price of admission.

~ Hubert Selby Jr.

Hubert Selby Jr. Writing

The awful part of the writing game is that you can never be sure the stuff is any good.

~ P.g. Wodehouse

P.g. Wodehouse Biography Humour Letters Writing Writing Life

Writing is a gift to both the writer and the reader.

~ Cheryl Alleway

Cheryl Alleway Reader Writing

What about reality, you ask? Well, as far as I'm concerned, reality can go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. I've never held much of a brief for reality, at least in my written work. All too often it is to the imagination what ash stakes are to vampires.

~ Stephen King

Stephen King Imagination Reality Writing

The other day, when I was deciding where to place a mountain range, how to make a river's flow detour around underground stalactite caves, and what precise color to give the sky at sunset, I realized I was God... or an artist and a writer.

~ Vera Nazarian

Vera Nazarian Art Artist Color Create Creating Creation Creativity Creator Deity God Gods Mountain Mountains River Rivers Sky Sunset Writer Writing

I think horror, when done well, is one of the most direct and honest ways to get to the core of the human experience because terror reduces all of us to our most authentic forms.

~ Alistair Cross

Alistair Cross Alistair Cross Horror Writing

I think maybe today a poem I hopeafter breakfast I start tryingpulling it out of my own gutmostly by force

~ John Thomas Idlet

John Thomas Idlet Breakfast Poem Writing

My study throngs with characters waiting to be written. Imaginary people, anxious for a life, who tug at my sleeve, crying, 'Me next! Go on! My turn!' I have to select. And once I have chosen, the others lie quiet for ten months or a year, until I come to the end of the story, and the clamor starts up again.

~ Diane Setterfield

Diane Setterfield Writing

I do so much writing. But so much of it never goes anywhere, never sees any light of day. I suppose that's like gardening in the basement. I don't publish so much of what I write. I just seem to plow it back into the soil of what I write after it, rewriting and rewriting, thinking that somehow it gets better after the fifty-second-time around. I need to learn to abandon my writing. To let go of it. Dispose of it, like tissue.

~ J.r. Tompkins

J.r. Tompkins Rewriting Writing

He whistles. Que viva Colombia. Hands you back the Book. You really should write the cheater's guide to love.You think?I do. It takes a while. You see the tall girl. You go to more doctors. You celebrate Arlenny's Ph.D defense. And then one June night you scribble the ex's name and: The half-life of love is forever. You bust out a couple more things. Then you put your head down. The next day you look at the new pages. For once you don't want to burn them or give up writing forever. It's a start, you say to the room. That's about it. In the months that follow you bend to the work, because it feels like hope, like grace—and because you know in your lying cheater's heart that sometimes a start is all we ever get.

~ Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz Love Writing

Grub Street turns out good things almost as often as Parnassus. For if a writer is hard up enough, if he’s far down enough (down where I have been and am rising from, I am really saying), he can’t afford self-doubt and he can’t let other people’s opinions, even a father’s, keep him from writing.

~ Wallace Stegner

Wallace Stegner Inspiration Motivation Poverty Writing

The Fiction defense. Sometimes I just need to use it.

~ C. Kennedy

C. Kennedy Writing Writing Fiction
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