Writing Quotes

Writing humor for me is more like a watchful-ness. You have to watch. When you say something funny, or someone else does, it's more like you wait for the piece.

~ Ian Frazier

Rather than writing about my experiences with other people, 'Ugly Cherries' is the first song I've ever written about myself. It's a confrontation: an attempt to unpack my own queerness with humor and self care.

~ Ben Hopkins

But if you read Jane Austen, you know that she had a wicked sense of humor. Not only was she funny, but her early writing was very dark and had a gothic tone to it.

~ Seth Grahame-Smith

I certainly didn't say while writing 'Gossip Girl,' 'Oh this is going to be big!' It was really like, 'Oh god, everyone's gong to hate these people! They're so bratty!' But I actually think what is so appealing about them is the humor in them.

~ Cecily Von Ziegesar

I am in the Master of Professional Writing program teaching Humor Writing, Literary and Dramatic.

~ Shelley Berman

But to the fighting soldier that phase of the war is behind. It was left behind after his first battle. His blood is up. He is fighting for his life, and killing now for him is as much a profession as writing is for me.

~ Ernie Pyle

The United States has made a massive effort since the end of the Second World War to secure the dominance of its films in foreign markets - an achievement generally pushed home politically, by writing clauses into various treaties and aid packages.

~ Fredric Jameson

Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.

~ Lillian Hellman

Writing is harder than acting. I enjoy acting for just the brevity with which you can be in the experience of doing it. Writing is kind of more satisfying in that you're creating a world and doing something that feels bigger, but it's very time consuming and has a higher threshold for failure.

~ Justin Theroux

I don't know if it's a failure of imagination on my part, but I'm not going to be writing about Paris in the 1800s. I feel like it would come off as just ludicrously uninformed, even if I did a lot of research.

~ Maria Semple

I find writing very difficult. It's hard and it hurts sometimes, and it's scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities.

~ Tony Kushner

I felt a failure because I couldn't sustain myself from what I earned from my writing. My day jobs were what mattered, and it was hard to even get those because universities wouldn't hire me as a real writer.

~ Sandra Cisneros

I can't say I'm not grateful to have journalists writing about me as a genius. But I know it's not true. I'm not confused. I understand that success comes through a lot of failure and a lot of very embarrassing failure. People want to create the next Facebook, but they are too afraid to create the next Facemash.

~ Eric Ries

Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's a valid part of any endeavour, not just writing.

~ Roddy Doyle

I was learning the craft; I didn't study writing in school. Rejection was my motivation, and failure is what taught me.

~ Pierce Brown

It's hilarious to me that by writing an obscene fake children's book I am mistaken for a parenting expert.

~ Adam Mansbach

I'm not a parenting expert by any means, but I've been interviewing and writing about kids for almost 20 years.

~ Nancy Jo Sales

When you're writing, you're only a brain and some fingers, but drumming, you're involving all four limbs, and you're hearing stuff and you're converting your ideas into physical motions, getting physical feedback from things you are touching - it's pretty cool. It's a really a nice contrast to writing.

~ Michael Azerrad

I think it would be cool if you were writing a ransom note on your computer, if the paper clip popped up and said, 'Looks like you're writing a ransom note. Need help? You should use more forceful language, you'll get more money.'

~ Demetri Martin

Making a mix CD - albeit slightly old school - is generally a pretty cool gift and something I like to receive, or giving someone a book that moved you. Writing an inscription inside makes it even better.

~ Ryan Reynolds

One of my favorite things I read was John Steinbeck's journals while he was writing 'East of Eden,' which was so cool.

~ Paul Dano

When you're writing with an artist or for an artist, you have to help them serve their vision. That's the cool part about writing songs. There are no rules.

~ Chris Stapleton

My friends in Paris are writers, or something like that, whereas my friends in New York are doing cool stuff in finance and living very different lives. In writing, it's pretty solitary, so it doesn't really matter who's around.

~ Whit Stillman

I suppose there must be idiots who dream of signing deals with publishers while fully intending to drink martinis in cool bars or ride around on skateboards. But the actual writers I know are experts in neurotic self-torture. Every page of writing is the result of a thousand tiny decisions and desperate acts of will.

~ Helen Garner

The cool thing about writing music, writing anything, is that once you publish it, it's there forever.

~ Ryan Tedder

I started writing stories in sixth grade. But writing wasn't cool, like being good at sports, or being part of the in crowd, or winning fights on the playground.

~ Rodman Philbrick

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

~ Isaac Asimov

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

~ Gustave Flaubert

I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication. And I knew I could sing from being in tune with the radio.

~ Frank Ocean

I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading.

~ Charles Kuralt

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Writing is learning to say nothing, more cleverly each day.

~ William Allingham

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

~ Harold Pinter

Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication.

~ Maya Angelou

I thought my life was mapped out. Research, living in the forest, teaching and writing. But in '86 I went to a conference and realised the chimpanzees were disappearing. I had worldwide recognition and a gift of communication. I had to use them.

~ Jane Goodall

I began doing writing projects and art and design projects to explore a new way of seeing Canada. Roots is one more way of continuing this exploration. I want to present a wide-open Canadian sense of color, adventure, communication and openness that defines our country.

~ Douglas Coupland

I try to combine in my paintings cinematic feeling, emotional feeling, and sometimes actually writing on the page to combine all the different elements of communication.

~ Sylvester Stallone

I feel like communication is the same whether you're cooking for someone or singing or writing a song or writing a play or ordering from McDonald's.

~ Tituss Burgess

In a way song writing can almost be detrimental, because suddenly you find an outlet that is a kind of cheating. You don't need to have direct communication. You can say, 'I can't describe it to you, but I will record it and send it to you.'

~ James Blunt

I find that I have about six bloggable ideas a day. I also find that writing twice as long a post doesn't increase communication, it usually decreases it. And finally, I found that people get antsy if there are unread posts in their queue.

~ Seth Godin